One Third Human
by Shell Presto
Summary: Two years after Slayers Try, Zelgadis is still searching for his cure when he is reunited with his friends. Now he must face his greatest enemies: monsters, dragons, his friends, his emotions, and himself.
1. Chapter Zero

**One Third Human**   
**Prologue**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, various companies do. However, this STORY is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. I'd love for you to read it, even better if you enjoy it, hope you may be inspired by it, but plead that you do not copy it. Give credit where credit is due, and to each their own. Have honor, okay? Most importantly, though, ENJOY! 

I'd like to say that this is my first attempt at a Slayers fanfic. Most notably, I don't have full knowledge of all the spells that certain characters can cast. I do try to stay within their category though, so please allow yourself to suspend disbelief if I make a mistake. 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. It is my goal to become a great writer, so even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. Alternately, feel free to use diemwind@golem-fan.co.uk if you're on my page, Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation. I'll do my best to get back to you. Well, enough of that, on with the story.   
  


After months of travel, he had arrived.   
"What are you doing here?"   
"I'm here to see Milgesia..."   
"I am Milgesia," the huge golden dragon snapped back. He took the instant of shock on the stranger's face to transform into his human guise. "What do you want, hu...." Now of average size, he could see the person's face --at least the upper half, nose and mouth being covered-- quite clearly. "My mistake," he corrected himself. "You do not seem to be human at all. What business do you have with me?"   
The man removed the cloth over his face, pulling it down so that it resembled a collar. Rocks covered hard, blue flesh, a visage which at first appeared to be a statue, unmoving, until words came forth. "My name is Zelgadis, I fought alongside Lina Inverse against Gaav and Hellmaster Phibrizzo about a year ago. Back then, you helped her gain access to the Claire Bible. I wish to know if the true Claire Bible still exists, and, if so, will you help me gain access to it."   
Milgesia, now a muscular, long-haired blonde, laughed. "You expect me to lead just anyone to the Claire Bible? The dragons are here to protect it."   
"I just want to cure myself," Zelgadis explained. "I want to become human again; I look this way because of a curse. I assure you my intentions are harmless, and you know me, I traveled with Lina and helped to defeat Darkstar."   
Milgesia eyed the young man over; he did not seem like the peaceful type. Also, he sensed a strong aura about him, although not necessarily a good one. An ambiguous one: a pure human, but also the magical properties of a demon, a member of the monster race. Then he remembered. "You traveled with Lina, but also with Xellos."   
Eyelids narrowed over thin blue green slits of color. "That was not by my choice," he stated, voice dripping with venom at the thought of the man who swindled him again and again out of opportunities to be cured. He calmed himself hastily, releasing a long breath. "Anyway, you helped Lina.."   
"Because my life was in danger. I apologize, but however insignificant your reason, I cannot lead you to the Claire Bible. As a matter of fact, I do not know if it survived the battle with Gaav. I have yet to check. Please dismiss yourself."   
He was not willing to face yet another failure. Teeth gritted, Zelgadis growled at the man proceeded to leave, "Don't turn your back on me! If you want your life threatened, that can easily be arranged!"   
Milgesia grinned sardonically as Zelgadis struck an offensive pose. "You wish to fight me, chimera?"   
"No. I wish to be human again, and I won't be refused. Now either reconsider or prepare yourself."   
Milgesia shifted back into a dragon, but the intimidation did not work.   
Quietly, Zelgadis chanted, "Source of all souls which dwell in eternal and infinite. Everlasting flame of blue, let the power hidden in my soul be called forth from the Infinite." Power glowed between gloved, tensed hands. "RA-TILT!"   
That was the beginning. 

Tsuzuku..   
  


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
  



	2. Chapter One

**One Third Human**   
**Part One**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honor, okay? Enjoy. 

**Email me** at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. Alternately, feel free to use diemwind@golem-fan.co.uk if you're on my webpage, Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation. I'll do my best to get back to you. Well, enough of that, on with the story.   
  


"I'm back."   
The cold hiss of words shot up the man's spine like a knife. Sweat seeped from his pores as his body stiffened. His friend, who sat across the table from him, froze as well. Seeing what he could not, his friend's jaw dropped before he jumped up from the table and ran out of the pub.   
Fear kept him from turning around, but did not keep his eyes off the demon whose gaze pierced through his back. With amazing speed, the man was lifted up and slammed against the wall. He saw narrow, hate-filled eyes, and rocks. Horrible, frightening stone lined those blazing eyes.   
Zelgadis was not happy about being played for a fool. Hate bubbled up in him and shot through his veins. It was not the first time he had been tricked, many a greedy peasant had sold him information that was "helpful." Helpful in that it filled their wallets and wasted his time. He wanted to scream at the man, to slice his head off and display it on his sword. The anger within him was growing every day, the one third demon was teetering on the one half mark. Instead, the chimera simply removed his cloak and exposed his face, a monochromatic blue palette of stones on flexible stone, with shiny strands of sharp wire acting as more of a mask than hair covering his right eye.   
By no effort of Zelgadis', the man began gasping for air. Suddenly, a voice cried out, "Don't hurt him! Please, he's my husband! I know what he did was wrong! We'll return the money, give you anything you want, just please don't hurt him!"   
One third human won out, and Zelgadis let go of the man, leaving him with very little punishment. He instead turned to the man's wife, intent on getting his money back. A small pouch of coins clattered to the ground as the woman cried out in horror. Even without any malice in his expression, the chimera still came off as a monster. Often he wondered if perhaps he truly was one without knowing it. However, it did not matter as he picked up the gold and left.   
There was an ache within Zelgadis as he left. He was being more erratic these days; it seemed as though a war was being waged inside of him. The years of being called a monster wherever he went had finally caught up with him. He had done nothing to deserve the curse Rezo had dealt him, had not wronged the townspeople in any way to deserve their fear. The hate was growing with the futility of his quest. He was starting to believe he would never find a cure. Yet the sympathy he saw in the frightened strangers cut into him. He wanted that. He wanted the kindness that would come with being human.   
Yet not all humans were kind. Walking down the near deserted streets of the town, he was once again interrupted. Something had tapped him. He turned, and another tap ensued. At least, it was a tap to him. The rocks being hurled at him would have knocked any other person unconscious. _Throwing rocks at a golem_, he mused, _What irony_.   
A small crowd of young men carrying boards, shovels, pitchforks, and the like stood in front of him. Most were shaking with fear, but all were prepared to fend off the demon they had heard of and defend the town.   
Zelgadis sighed wearily as he raised his arm, "Wind Breed." Waves of wind were sent at the mob, knocking them down and scattering them. Zelgadis then walked out of the town before they could recuperate, wishing the entire time that he would have cast something more lethal instead. _It would serve them right_, he thought.   
Night slid in like an invisible fog. Zelgadis did not even realize that the shaded forest was pitch black until he could hardly see a meter in front of him. There was no use for continuing at the moment, and so Zelgadis sat against a tree and removed some rations from his cloak. Dried meat and a canteen filled with water, meant for extreme conditions when no other food was available, but tonight was too much, and he wanted some comfort in the lonely darkness. Humans had to eat often, unlike him. Mostly stone, he could go for weeks without food or water, an unnatural act in most eyes. He chewed on a strip of meat pensively, considering where to head next.   
"The Atlas City guilds are holding a convention of some sort in a few days," he mumbled to himself. "I doubt I'll find anything, but I don't have any other leads." Still absorbed in thought, he brought the canteen to his lips. He gasped as a small object fell into his lap, water following it as the startled chimera toweled himself off with his cape. He cast a lighting spell to find Amelia's amulet, one she had worn on her wrist, wet and on his leg. He looked upon it with sad eyes, recalling fond memories. "I've been so wrapped up in finding a cure, I forgot I had this."   
He frowned, "I'm also talking to myself." Sluggishly, he stood up and started walking down the forest path once again, this time with Lighting to guide his way. 

Atlas City was packed. Sorcerers, students, collectors, and merchants filled the cobblestone streets. Zelgadis was not fond of the crowd. He almost feared people in mass as they were. With hundreds of people to see his face, one outcry and he could be overwhelmed in a mob. He kept his head low and hood even lower. Letting himself glimpse around sparingly, a stand selling magical items and wards caught his eye. There really was nothing of interest, only a few gems with wards in them, yet these gems seemed strangely familiar. He could have sworn he had seen them before; they were hand-made, a sorcerer had to have enhanced them. Before he could finish the thought, he caught a glimpse of himself in a small mirror, a gemmed relic. Only his eyes were visible, the lower part of his face was covered by a tight cloth. Still, his eyes were the most inhuman part of him, he noticed, what with them being surrounded by rocks, no eyebrows, and with only a thin slice of color adorning the white.   
"Don't look so down, Zel. You've really got to lighten up." He could remember Lina having said that so many times, he could almost hear the petite redhead sorceress now.   
"Hey, Zel!" This time the words were accompanied by a slap on the shoulder, then a small wince of minor pain. He turned to see two glittering ruby eyes that instantly locked onto his.   
"Lina," he mouthed, sound barely coming out due to a dumbfoundedness.   
She was slightly shaking her wrist, an overreaction. Smiling, she said, "I forgot how hard your skin is." Then, "You got taller."   
He smiled warmly at her under his mask. "So did you, a bit. I wasn't expecting to see you here." He paused, then thought to add, "But I should have known better, this being a rendezvous for the magic guilds." She had made and sold the wards, he realized.   
A tall, blonde man carrying a large sheathed sword walked up behind his partner. "Lina, they said they won't have a table available for another half an hour," he informed her, placing a large hand on her shoulder. The young woman leaned into him and pointed at her latest find. "Hey, Zelgadis!" Gourry nearly cheered. "Long time no see! How long has it been?"   
"About two years."   
Lina tilted her head a bit as she somberly noticed aloud, "You're still a chimera. You still haven't found a cure?"   
Growing quiet, Zelgadis only shook his head in response.   
"Well, hey, don't be upset. Lina and I are gonna eat in half an hour, why don't you join us?" the blonde offered, placing his other hand on Zelgadis' back as comfort.   
"I'd best not," he proclaimed reluctantly. "I really shouldn't take my mask off with all these people around."   
Her thin arm wrapped around his as Lina said, "Don't be silly, Zel, no one will notice a thing." Then the three of them walked to the inn. 

He had finished eating before them, as usual, and was leaned back in his chair sipping coffee, cloak still hiding most of his face. It was then that Lina happily began her interrogation between chewing. "So, did you find any good leads lately?"   
"No," he stated grimly. "My best chance was trying to get back to the Claire Bible, the original one, but between the mess that was made during the battle with Gaav and..."   
"Milgesia didn't help you?" she asked, a slightly confused look on her face.   
"He wasn't too fond of helping me. I'm not particularly the most honest-looking thing on the planet; I am part demon, and I... well... I..." He blushed slightly.   
"You lost your temper and threatened him."   
Zelgadis smirked, laughing slightly through his nose. "I fought him, actually, almost won, too. It was a draw, really."   
She caught her head in her hands as it dropped, and she nearly choked from sheer disbelief and suppressing a small giggle. "I can't believe you! You picked a fight with a Golden Dragon!" Her tone turned serious as she scolded him, "What were you thinking!?"   
"I don't know," he replied honestly. More quietly, he noted, "I've just been like that for a while."   
"Zel..."   
"You should stick around for a while," Gourry chimed in, his voice muffled as it was gorged with food. He swallowed, then continued, "Things have been pretty boring here; Lina and I haven't had much to do, but we'll be able to start traveling again in a few weeks."   
"Why in a few weeks? Why not sooner?"   
"Dragon Cuisine!" Lina enthusiastically announced, standing and raising her fist in the air. "Since we had some free time, we went back to that town, tracked down the chef and a lake dragon. He was glad to make it for us again, and we've been eating it almost every week for the past four months! It's almost all used up now, but it's delicious! You have to come with us next time we go."   
"How can I refuse that offer?" he chuckled. A sudden pang hit him, an acute realization that something was missing.   
Suddenly a devious, omnipotent grin crept over Lina's face as her gaze turned to something near the floor. She pointed below the table next to her friend. "What's that?"   
He looked down. "My canteen." It was hanging from his belt.   
She snickered almost inaudibly. "And what's that on it, hooked to the strap?"   
The slightest hint of red appeared on the chimera's pale cheeks. "It's a ward."   
"Of Seyruun," she added for him.   
"Of Seyruun."   
"That Amelia gave me."   
He acquiesced in a low mumble, "That Amelia gave me." The young man paused a moment, then stood up.   
"Zel?" Gourry questioned through a mouthful of food.   
He refused to answer. Pulling his mask up over his face, he turned to leave.   
"Hold it, Zel!" Lina protested, grabbing his arm. She realized she had gone too far. Her friend's backwards mannerisms had not changed with the years, it seemed. "Don't be so touchy, I just..."   
Sad blue green eyes caught hers before Zelgadis sat down again. He mumbled something of an apology from behind his mask and stared at the table. When Gourry and Lina had finished eating in as close to a silence as possible, they stood up, nodded at one another, and began to leave the inn.   
"Where are we going?" Zelgadis asked as he finally caught up with them, outside of town.   
"We've been taking Amelia with us to dinner whenever we go to eat dragon cuisine," Lina informed him. "It's about time to go get her."   
Zelgadis froze a moment, though his legs kept moving on their own. "Oh..." he forced out, deciding he had to say something. "It'll be good to see her again."   
The awkward silence traveled with them for another hour. Then it was finally replaced by trolls. A horde of them, close to twenty. They appeared out of nowhere, springing from the bushes to attack.   
"Fireball!" Lina summoned her power and threw it with devastating effect.   
"Where did these guys come from?" Gourry asked the others as he drew his sword, taking off a troll's arm.   
"I don't know, they've never attacked like this, though," Lina said, before lining up another fireball.   
"Lina, where's Zelgadis?"   
It had seemed he had run from the battle, for he was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, pillars of earth shot up from the trail, impaling the hulking beasts that had ambushed them. The cloaked figure returned from a thick patch of forest. "Sorry I left you two like that," he said calmly "I needed a minute to cast that spell."   
"What made the trolls so hostile, I wonder."   
"I don't know," exclaimed the blonde swordsman nervously, "but there are more on the way."   
A greenish mass of bodies was headed towards them at an alarming rate. "There's no way we can take them all on without destroying the forest as well," Zelgadis contemplated aloud.   
Lina tossed some ideas around in her head. "Zel, you cast something to hold them back. Gourry and I will handle the rest."   
They were ever the well-oiled machine, the two of them, Zelgadis thought. He had forgotten what it was like to be part of a team. He sighed, raising his outstretched arms towards his targets. "DIEM WIND!" Another wind-manipulation spell, it caused fierce winds to retard the monsters' advance.   
A round of freeze arrows followed it up, Lina chanting like crazy as her companion sustained his initial spell. Any troll to make it through their rapidly increasing barrier met with Gourry's sword. At the realization of their thinning numbers and ever decreasing luck, the trolls that had not been frozen nor killed retreated.   
By that time, the red sun was filtering little light through the thick trees, and darkness was beginning to loom over them. The night was chill as the exhausted travelers advanced towards the next town. Lina clung to Gourry for warmth until he finally ended their journey for the day. They found a decently sized clearing and made a fire, Gourry going up the path a bit to stand first watch. That left a shivering redhead and a quiet golem to watch the flames crackle in the night.   
After watching her lips turn the colour of his skin, Zelgadis removed cape and shirt, handing them to her. Surprise beamed from her wide eyes as the chimera laid by the fire, his upper half dangerously close to the base of the flames. "I'm sorry I've been so moody today." His words, meant for her, seemed more directed to the stars above them. "Like I said, I've been that way. I'm not feeling quite well, that's all. Still, you shouldn't freeze like that. Gourry would kill me if I let you get sick."   
"Zel..." Lina murmured, coming closer to the fire. She sat down next to him. "We shouldn't have left you go off on your own like that..."   
"It's not that." He dissipated her guilt. "It's..." he trailed off as he looked at his hand, stone on stone, and with very little sensation. So close to the fire, he only felt mild warmth. "Anyway, lay down on me."   
"Zel..!"   
"Don't ask; just trust me."   
With as much reluctance as she had the first time she had followed him out of her confinement with Rezo's henchmen, she leaned into his chest, allowing him to put an arm around her. She immediately comprehended his reasoning. "You're warm," she thought aloud.   
"My stone body is an excellent conductor, although it's not quite as soft as a bed." Far from it, his chest was just that, stone, and horribly uncomfortable, but Lina was too cold to complain.   
"Amelia misses you," Lina broke the silence, reading her mattress' thoughts.   
"I don't want to talk about that," Zelgadis ended the conversation there, and, eventually, Lina fell asleep.   
He had tried his best not to think of Amelia, to focus only on his cure. Their parting had been so ambiguous, he did not know what it meant, even now. The young girl that he had traveled with two years ago --it seemed like another lifetime ago-- had come to mean so much to him. He just could not decide how. Everything inside of him was a mess, and he tried not to deal with his emotions. He just wanted to see her again, to make the muddied lake that was his mind clear. Somehow, he believed that seeing Amelia again would do that for him. However, now was not the time to do so. No matter what he wanted, he could not be with her, not as he was now. _It's impossible_, he told himself. _Impossible_.   
When Gourry returned, Zelgadis explained why Lina was sleeping on him, a sight that initially disturbed the man. He then offered himself as a warm mattress to his standing companion, stating that he was not going to sleep despite his position.   
The awkwardness of being a living bed could not surpass the ache that seeing Gourry sleep contentedly with his arms around Lina brought to him. They were happy, and he was happy for them, but, somehow, pain overcame all other emotions. He wanted to know why and how he had become so touchy, especially over the mention of Amelia. Of course, he knew. He had feelings now, and he acknowledged them. Before meeting Lina, he was continually obsessed by power, revenge, healing. Now there were people he cared for, Lina, Gourry, Amelia, but he could not shake the thought that the feelings were not mutual.   
The past few years had brought to his attention that he was one third demon. _How could anyone hold amity for a monster? They couldn't_, he told himself. That was why he wanted to be human, was it not?_ Still_, he reassured himself as he gazed at the people dozing contentedly upon him, _they are my friends, and I care about them no matter how detached I feel. And Amelia_... He fingered the ward thoughtfully, _I care about her even more, it seems_.   
The fact that he could go another night without sleep was yet another testament to his inhumanity.   


Tsuzuku..   
  


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html 


	3. Chapter Two

One Third Human   
**Part Two**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honor, okay? Enjoy. 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. Alternately, feel free to use diemwind@golem-fan.co.uk if you're on my webpage, Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation. I'll do my best to get back to you. Well, enough of that, on with the story.   
  


He wanted to see her. He did want to see her. At least, he kept trying to tell himself he did, but his body only responded with a queasy, empty feeling in his rather full stomach. He had been fine up until they had eaten, now he felt as though he would pass out. _It had to be the food_, he told himself. Then, _I haven't seen her in two years. What will she say about that? What if she's mad at me, or upset. I didn't even write. I should have written._ He lightly scraped his fingers down his face, abrasive pads resisting the motion as if he ran his hand across sandpaper. He licked his fingertip to taste the slightest hint of salt; perspiration could not pour off his face like others'. The closest he could come to sweating was the lightest film of salt water that could make it past his rock hide. He was sweating, his way, and had not done so since they had fought Darkstar. Or maybe Shabrinigdo, he was not sure.   
As they entered the gates leading into Saillune's Castle, they were stopped by a guard. Zelgadis knew he looked suspicious, all covered up in layers of tan material, afraid that he would simply look horrifying if he did not. Lina cleared him; he was allowed to remain hidden. The castle had never looked so big before, with huge towers looming over him, nearly reaching up into the sky. The pacifist capital gave off a malevolent vibe, making him feel unwelcome. _By all rights, she could hate me._

"Amelia will be thrilled to see you again," the bright redhead asserted as she put her hand on the door leading to Amelia's room.   
"Yeah," Zelgadis choked unevenly.   
"Zel..?"   
He whipped himself around and began walking back down the hall. "I've decided it's best if I don't stick around. I don't have time for all of this."   
Gourry caught him by the shoulder. "Don't you even want to say hi?"   
"No." A cold word, devoid of all emotion.   
Lina frowned. "Don't you even want to know how she's doing?"   
He could not bring himself to bark out another cold lie of a syllable. Staying behind one of the double doors, he allowed his friends to open the other, bidding them leave it open._ I'll leave after I know she's doing well._ He could not bring himself to complete his own thought 'without me.' _But that doesn't matter. I want a cure, that's all. That's most important._ Yet, for some strange reason, he felt the urge for violence bubbling up within him. He thought of the man who had tricked him at the bar.   
Those thoughts melted when he heard a bubbly, warm, yet unfamiliarly soft voice.   
"Miss Lina, Mister Gourry, you came! I knew you would today, I had this feeling."   
There was a hug, even though he could not see it, he knew it happened.   
"How are things with the kingdom, Amelia?"   
"Alright...." her voice trailed off in a bout of minuscule confusion.   
"What's wrong, Amelia? What are you looking for?"   
"Nothing, Mister Gourry, it's just I.... I felt... I was thinking about....."   
Lina did her best not to grin. She knew this would happen, this always happened. Soon Amelia would cut herself off and shake off the whole, seemingly silly to her but actually respectable, idea. It would be forgotten, or at least hidden, in their presence. _Not today, Amelia_, Lina thought, laughing internally. "You can say it, Amelia," she coaxed her friend. Amelia, being a princess, never allowed herself to say it, but today the emotion was thick, laying like fog in the air. Amelia wanted to break today.   
And she did with the invitation. "D.. Did you hear from him?"   
"Who," Gourry asked, genuinely confused.   
Zelgadis let his body slump against the door, perplexed.   
"You haven't heard from Mister Zelgadis, have you?"   
Sad eyes looked back at her knowingly; they could not say a word.   
"You have, haven't you," Amelia concluded, yet she did not feel the happiness she would have expected after two years. Their eyes filled her with panic. _Why won't they share?_ Her eyes widened. "He's hurt!" she cried hysterically. "You won't tell me because it's bad! How is he? He's not... He can't be...!!"   
His fingers twitched. Nails shaved the coating off the hard wood door as he heard the agony in her questions. He imagined huge blue eyes on a small face, untouched hope cracking in them. It tore through his once heartless chest. "I'm alright," he rasped, trying to project his voice to inspirit her; failing. He allowed himself one step entry into the doorway, catching a slight glimpse of her before he found his voice. "I'm fine, Amelia."   
Shock lit up his eyes like a battery when she turned to face him.   
Thinner face and smaller eyes tensed in a frozen moment. The slightest hint of pink turned up with the rest of her lips. Slightly longer hair danced with flowing off-white robes against wind and velocity away from him. The total sum of Amelia was headed towards him. Delicate pastel lips freed his name, "Mister Zelgadis!"   
For a split second, it was all of gorgeousness and gorgeousity sealed in an instant. Then pleasant surprise became a small slice of horror as heels stopped their forward momentum and both feet left the ground at once. "Amelia, DON'T...!"   
Despite his best efforts at catching her, her forehead and his cheek had a much less than joyful encounter than they themselves were experiencing. A trace of blood traversed down her brow, making its way to her eye. Zelgadis cursed his inhumanity as he set her standing once again, wiping, as gently as his rough skin would allow, the crimson from the peachiness that was her face. Instead of a nice, normal greeting, he reintroduced himself whispering, "Recovery."   
She never stopped smiling, not once. "Sorry, Mister Zelgadis. I'm just very happy to see you again. I've...." The red that disappeared from her forehead was spread across her entire visage. "I mean, that is to say, WE've been worried about you, and.... Aren't you going to take your mask off?"   
Blue green slits averted their attention to the floor.   
Lina's hand darted between the two, one slim finger hooking onto the chimera's disguise. "C'mon, Zel, show her how handsome you've become!" she playfully teased, yanking the cloth down.   
He scowled initially, but when he realized that Amelia was taking the comment to heart and actually studying his face, lavender creeped up onto the blue.   
The the ever-puzzled swordsman inquired, "Why is his face all purple? I thought it was blue."   
Zelgadis' stone body collapsed, straight back, stiff as a statue.   
"Miss Lina, is he going to be alright?" 

"C'mon! Wake up already!"   
He opened his eyes to a huge yellow and blue haze.   
"Get up, Zelgadis!"   
It took him a moment to clear his head. "Gourry.. Where's Amelia? ...and Lina?"   
"That's what I've been saying!" Gourry exclaimed, frustrated at having to explain it over and over.   
"I wasn't awake, I can't remember."   
Two very large hands grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him to his feet. "Man, you're heavy."   
"I'm a rock," Zelgadis bluntly informed him.   
Gourry gave him a puzzled look. "I thought you were a person. Or a... or a.. kirema."   
"Chimera."   
"Chimera. Anyway, let's go."   
"Where?"   
Gourry gritted his teeth. "I told you!"   
"I couldn't hear you, I was unconscious."   
Gourry huffed, "Lina and Amelia are downstairs eating dinner. They made me stay to make sure you're alright and now Lina's gonna eat everything!"   
"Oh?" Zelgadis blinked twice. "Well, I'm alright now, so you can go."   
Gourry's heavy footsteps resounded through the hall as he took off down the stairs.   
"Now then," Zelgadis began planning as he covered his face and pulled his hood up over his metallic hair. "Although that went much better than expected, I'm afraid I can't stay any longer. I have to focus on finding my cure." He headed down a different set of steps, taking the long way to the doors of the palace. "Sorry, guys," he apologized to the air, "That dragon cuisine did sound tempting, but it's not my place to be bothering you anymore. Sorry, Amelia." He smirked in an awkward sense of pride.   
A pride that shattered when he heard: "Amelia can't exactly hear you when you're way out here."   
"Lina?"   
A sharp, anguished cry could be heard from the dining hall: "She ate all the food!"   
Then, "Don't worry, Mister Gourry, the chefs will bring some more out in a few minutes."   
The redhead winked and wagged her finger in a knowing manner. "I knew you were going to try something like this, Zel. However, you know we won't let you go off on your own again." She remained leaning against the door, but moved her shoulders forward and softened the egotistic look in her eyes. "We're your friends, Zel, and we genuinely want to help you. You aren't bothering us at all. Your chances of finding a cure are actually better with us coming along, anyway."   
Zelgadis was taken aback, his mouth open slightly, trying to find something to say. Part of him wanted to push her aside and set out. The other half wanted to whisper an apologetic thanks and go into the hall for dinner. Then there was the minuscule .000000000001 percent that wanted to start crying and hug her, and he laughed at himself simply because the thought was in his mind somewhere.   
Lina returned a knowing grin and stepped towards him. "Besides, we're all bored here, so we want to go with you if only for something to do." He nodded in agreement as they walked into the dining hall and sat down.   
"So you're going to join us for dragon cuisine this week, Mr. Zelgadis?" Amelia asked as Zelgadis lackadaisically ate his dinner.   
He chewed slowly for a long minute before swallowing. "Perhaps."   
Amelia frowned. He had seemed so happy to see her before, but now he was distant once again. She wanted to see him smile. "So, did you go looking through Saillune's libraries yet?"   
"Not yet, not this visit."   
"You really should, Zel," Lina suggested. "This is the White Magic Capital. If there's a cure to be found, it's here."   
After another long pause of consideration, Zelgadis revealed, "After Rezo turned me into a chimera, I spent three months in Saillune looking through every book to find a cure. The last time we were all here together, I took another look through. I didn't find anything."   
The rest of the meal was eaten in an uneasy silence, people leaving the table one by one until only Zelgadis and Amelia remained. At some point though, Amelia thought it best to leave him alone as well, and left the table without a look and only a light touch on his shoulder.   
He did not know what was wrong with him. It was normal for him to be quiet, but he felt something deep inside of him, nagging, lurking, wanting to get out. It ate at him, yet he knew not what it was, only that he wanted it to go away.   
His feet dragged along the great stone floors as he left the dining hall. Much to his surprise, his friends were waiting for his arrival; they were all suited up and ready to head out.   
Zelgadis returned the smirk that lay on Lina's face. "I know we had dinner early, but it's still rather late to be heading out now. We'll never make it to the next town before nightfall."   
"Sure we will," Lina corrected him with a wink.   
"C'mon, Mister Zelgadis, let's go!"   
At first he did not ask any questions, but, as they left Saillune's city gates, he could not suppress his incredulity of their plan. He had to be missing something. "Are we taking horses?" he inquired.   
Lina smiled and shook her head 'no.'   
"Do you intend to fly all the way to the next town?"   
"Of course not, Mister Zelgadis, that would be silly," Amelia declared cheerfully. Her quick steps increased in speed and bounce until she was nearly skipping down the path with an unbridled joy.   
Zelgadis pulled up his mask to hide his smile, then pulled down his hood so that no one could watch him watch her. Her mood was infectious. 

"I told you we'd never make it to town on time!" he huffed. The sun had set. "Why didn't you listen to me in the first place?"   
Gourry sighed as if wondering himself. "Lina said it was important to go today so that you wouldn--"   
A thin, gloved arm sped sharply into his ribs just below his armor. Before he could so much as moan, Lina interjected, "There's no use complaining now. We'll just have to sleep here."   
The chimera did not have time to digest Gourry's comment before he scolded her again. "Yes. Here. In the middle of the woods where we were attacked by trolls just this morning. And it's been cold these past nights. You don't have the proper gear to sleep outside and you'll all freeze!"   
"You shouldn't complain!" Lina snapped back. "You won't feel the cold anyway! We'll be the ones who are cold, Zel, and you can just--"   
"And I have to be the one to sit up all night keeping the three of you warm! I won't even be able to stretch, let alone...." he trailed off, and Gourry's stray words gained perspective.   
"Let alone...?"   
He let his head hang low. "We're out here tonight so that I would have no choice but to be your own personal heater. You figured...."   
"Miss Lina thought that if you were needed, you wouldn't try to leave us in the middle of the night."   
His hand covered the last, barely visible part of his face as he sighed in a combination of frustration, distress, and some warm feeling he could not identify. "I see. Well then, start a fire. I'll be back in a little while." With that, he turned from them and headed into the forest.   
"Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia called, half choked.   
"I'll be back," he told her dully. "You haven't left me with a choice."   
The princess sobbed lightly, not allowing the moisture to build in her eyes. "mister zelgadis." She let her right foot move an inch forward before stopping herself.   
Lina knew better. She walked up behind her friend, then spoke quietly, though firmly, into her ear, "I think you had the right idea, Amelia."   
"You think so?" She did not wait for an answer before she allowed her quivering lips to tense into a strong smile. _Of course, Miss Lina is right._ She followed the path that Zelgadis had taken into the thick brush, lost, but confident that she would find him.   
"Eh... What just happened?"   
"Jellyfish for brains!" Lina scowled as she slapped Gourry upside the head. 

"It's not safe to wander around in the daAARRK!" Amelia shrieked as she felt the blade of Zelgadis' sword press against her neck.   
"Amelia!" He lowered his sword in a panic. "What in the world are you doing here? I didn't cut you, did I?"   
Her heart was pounding in her head and her breathing resumed. It took a few seconds of effort to realize she was unharmed, and longer still to remember why she had come out to him. She could not see his face in the darkness of the forest, but by the clarity of his voice she knew he had removed his mask. "I'm fine. I wanted to surprise you." _So much for that._   
"Don't sneak up on people when there could be monsters around."   
"But you-"   
He cut her off, "Are one. I know. Good point. Sorry."   
"Don't put words in my mouth!" she nearly threatened. Her flashing, navy, fed-up eyes went unnoticed in the cover of the night. "As I was saying, you're so serious, and distant. I thought you could use a distraction."   
There was a long silence, save for the sound of rock scraping through wire.   
She thought to add, "And you're not a monster."   
"One third monster, demon, golem, all the same thing. I'm something like that," he mumbled. More loudly, he retorted, "I just don't want you, any of you, involved in this. Sometimes it's just not safe, and this is my problem, not anyone else's."   
"But we're your friends!"   
"All the more reason for me to leave. Why should you share the suffering and disappointment?"   
"suffering and disappointment?" Amelia mimicked the words innocently, gently, as if they were new to her. The fast pace of her beating heart had not slowed since his sword had been against her neck.   
"I've been searching for years now, Amelia, and each new failure doesn't make me feel any better," he confessed. "Why spread the pain?"   
Suddenly the naive girl before him found her voice, loud, confident, and full of love and justice. "What about the disappointment of missing a friend? Or the suffering of not knowing how they are? You could die out there, and we would never even know!"   
Bitterly, he muttered, "I'm not that lucky."   
He heard her gasp, then awaited a reply. After a long moment of silence, he concluded that she must not have heard him. He was glad for that._ It was a selfish thing for me to say_, he rebuked himself. _I had no right to say it._   
A soft hiccup of a sob ceased his thoughts. All was still as the faint sound of strangled heaving, suppressed, reverberated in his pointed ears. "Amelia?"   
Her tense throat would not allow for more than a barely audible, high pitched vibration in the back of her throat. Tears stung her eyes like venom. _You can't mean that_, she protested in her mind, but she knew better. His situation, his feelings about his failures became clear to her. Logic confirmed his statement for her; it only made sense that he would want to end it all.   
His hand found her cheek, but his fingers were retracted into his sleeve. The plain, cottony material was cold against her face, soaking up her tears. If not for the subtle vibrations of his fiercely shaking hand, she would have sworn that it was a part of no thing living. It was the closest that they had ever been, the most intimate contact that they had ever shared, but it did not disapate the haze of suffering, disappointment, fear, and heartache that stabbed into her eyes. She felt that her heart had shattered in that hand, and after two years, she knew that it was not the light heart of a girl with a crush, but a heart of too-long-smothered longing for a man who remained far away from her.   
He knew it, too, as some irresistible force plowed a hole through his once solid chest. How he regretted his words; it would have been better had he said nothing. Yet he knew it, her, and heard it as well, as she choked out with voice thick, "zelgadis."   
  


Tsuzuku... 

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
mangetsu@email.com 


	4. Chapter Three

**One Third Human**   
**Part Three**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honor, okay? Enjoy. 

This is my fourth part and I've only gotten one email! C'mon, I know you're out there! Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Please? Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. Alternately, feel free to use diemwind@golem-fan.co.uk if you're on my webpage, Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation. I'll do my best to get back to you. Well, enough of that, on with the story. 

I just want to add a little thank you here, as I haven't done so in a long time. I'd like to thank Des, who probably is not reading this at the moment, for everything he's done for me. Without his encouragement early on, I probably would not be the writer I am today. Thanks.   


It was a starless night. On the rare occasion that a ray of moonlight evaded the clouds, they might have seen him looking at them through two dark, slitted eyes. The monster priest held back a laugh, grinning as he observed the scene. He reveled in the agony of the young girl, and wanted to dance as the chimera struggled with his thoughts. 

"We will find a way to cure you," she vowed. Tears still ran down her cheeks, but a blaze erupted inside of her, giving her the strength to help the cursed man before her.   
He allowed his hand, still covered in his sleeve, to graze her skin one last time before lowering it to his side. "I don't want you to. It's too dangerous."   
"But..."   
"I don't want to talk about it. I'll be leaving tomorrow." Something dark ruptured in his mind. Zelgadis became horribly upset, and angry. He clenched his fist, the hand so gentle to Amelia only moments ago. It all came down to power. Zelgadis was a chimera, part demon, part golem. The first gave him unnatural speed and agility, plus enhanced his magical prowess. The latter made him virtually invulnerable to any number of physical attacks. Rezo had given him the power he had asked for so long ago, but, in the end, not as much as he needed. Zelgadis still lacked the power to change himself back to normal. He wished he had been the one to kill Rezo, not Lina.   
Amelia remained quiet as she studied Zelgadis' form in the darkness. Squinting, she tried to make out his expression, to no avail. It was like inversely trying to make out the center of the sun. "mister zelgadis?" It scared her when he did not reply. Carefully, she reached her hand out to touch his face.   
His fingers snapped around her wrist immediately before she made contact. His eyes widened. In the muddied light of the moon, filtered through treetops, he could see its reflection on her tears. He muttered the beginning of a curse to himself as he released her wrist. The hate inside of him melted into shame. He was so dazed before, he realized that he could have hit her if he had not caught himself. Then he hated himself for being so irrational.   
There stood before him a sad young woman, concerned and trying to be strong for his sake. And he was hurting her, through words and actions._ I really am a monster._ He exhaled a long, drawn out breath, pushing out all the negativity and whatever other dumb words he could have said. "Please don't touch my face," he calmly requested.   
"Take it back." She had at last worked up the nerve to say it.   
"Take what back?"   
The words still played in her mind, louder than he had said them. _"I'm not that lucky."_ "What you said, before, when I.."   
"I take it back," he coolly denied his proclamation.   
It infuriated Amelia. "Don't lie!"   
Zelgadis nearly fell over in surprise. "But you said..."   
"Don't say it if you don't mean it!" she pouted. "Lying is worse than what you said!"   
He thought a moment. "I just wanted to..."   
"You just wanted to lie so I.. we'd let you run off on your own! Well, I'm not about to let you go off so you can kill yourself, Mister Zelgadis! I.."   
"Hey!" he interjected. "Slow down. Who said anything about killing myself?"   
"You.."   
"I said I didn't want to live anymore," he corrected. "I didn't say I was going to kill myself. I've suffered for years, what good would that have been for if I just ended it now? If I'm going to die, it will be for a reason." He struggled for a proper example. "Trying to find my cure, perhaps."   
Her voice dripped with frustration, "That won't make me worry any less! It doesn't matter if you do anything about it or not, you shouldn't want to die. And you shouldn't lie to m.... your friends, either."   
"I just wanted you to stop crying."   
"That doesn't make it any better," she contended. Yet, somehow, it did. _He wanted me to stop crying..._ The thought brought a small smile to her face, and she hoped that his vision was as bad as hers in the dark. He would not believe a word she had said if he saw her smile.   
"Anyway, you'd best head back now."   
Just when she believed she had reached him, the dream shattered. "I don't want to leav.."   
"I'll head back in a few minutes. And watch out for trolls."   
"Sure." Dejectedly, she reversed her steps back towards the campsite. Her feet spragged across the ground the entire way. But we were really connecting there, Mister Zelgadis.   
Unbeknownst to her, he smiled as she left.   
As did Xellos. 

"Ready to be a mattress again, Zel?" Lina teased him as he entered the clearing.   
He smirked as he removed his cloak. "Well now... Which one of you is lucky enough to get this?" he tempted them, holding it up as both Lina and Amelia rubbed their arms for warmth. "Aren't you two going to fight over it?"   
"Why don't you pick, Zel?" Lina asked innocently enough, but with an ominous grin.   
His smile grew, nearly revealing teeth but not quite. He tossed his cape to Amelia, who caught it with a bit of surprise. It seemed surreal to actually be holding his cloak, and she held it tightly to her chest, inching it slowly to her face to hide her blush. As the fog over her mind lifted, she lost all breath as it occurred to her that Zelgadis was also removing his shirt. "Ah... ah..." she gasped. "Missster Zelgadis..."   
The chimera lay down once again with his left arm nearly in the campfire, awaiting for adequate conduction to spread the heat over his body. Carefully with his free hand he folded his shirt and placed it on his chest. He was about to tell Amelia to lay down with him, but thought better of it. He stood up, removed his cloak from her arms, and wrapped it around her. He walked her to the fire and, conscientiously placing his shirt beneath her soft hair as he did so, eased her down on him. Finally, after placing one arm near the fire and wrapping one snugly around the princess, he allowed himself to look at her.   
Fortunately, she was not looking back up at him, or she would have seen the softness in his eyes, which he convinced himself would be a terrible thing. He certainly did not wish to lead her on, give her false hope. Amelia, for her own part, buried her face in his shirt, trying to hide her cherry tomato of a face. Her insides were jumping like a thousand rabbits, and she felt as though she would explode if they made eye contact.   
"I'll keep watch," Zelgadis offered to seemingly no one. Amelia paid no attention to his words, they meant nothing to her as they vibrated into her chest. She wanted him to say more if only to get that feeling, every utterance of his rumbled through her in warm bass tones. His breathing had a nice rhythm to it as well, when it occurred. She could have sworn he was breathing more slowly than she ever remembered anyone else doing.   
Her speculations were interrupted as Gourry rested his head on Zelgadis' thigh, spreading his arm out over the chimera's stomach to cushion Lina's head against the hard surface. It calmed Amelia down significantly to know that she was not going to be alone with Zelgadis as they were, although some part of her wished they would go away. _Still....._ Her thoughts broke off and turned lazily to sleep. _Zelgadis' shirt is soft._   
"I used to like cold nights," Zelgadis shared his stray comments with the glazed void above. Amelia sighed happily as his words moved through her, lulling her to sleep like waves.   
"Mattresses don't talk," Lina complained.   
Amelia half yawned, half mumbled, "Leave.. Mister... Zelll.gadis alone, Miss. Lina.... He can taaalk.. if he... wants to." She felt his grip on her shoulder pulse for a moment in appreciation as she dozed off.   
"Gimme a nudge close to sunset so you can get some sleep then," Gourry reminded his bed.   
"Yeah. Goodnight, guys." 

He could not have fallen asleep even if he had wanted to. His mind constantly shifted between thoughts of his cure and thoughts of Amelia. There was a warmth inside of him as he smoothed his cloak over her arm for what must have been the thousandth time. The feel of her laying on him brought a certain peace with it when he acknowledged her presence. Of course, his thought process began to cycle after about an hour. The more he thought of Amelia and what he could possibly feel for her, the more he convinced himself that anything beyond friendship was impossible for a monster, and so he became more driven to find a cure.   
_How could anyone love a freak like me_, he asked himself. Then the word 'love' disturbed him. _No one could love a freak like me._ Love love love. He hated that word. Hated it. He released his hold on Amelia, propping himself up on one arm to stare down at Lina and Gourry. The two smiled as the slept, Lina snuggled up close to her protector. Zelgadis scowled at the sight. His mood lasted all of three seconds before he fell back onto the dirt. "What's wrong with me?" he groaned. "Lina and Gourry are my friends. I'm glad they're happy. I want them to be happy."   
He watched the clouds shift above him, patiently awaiting a glimpse into space. For a long time he stared up at the stars as they came into view, trying to clear his mind like the sky. There were no answers waiting for him in the stars, only emptiness, but the void above him was peaceful. So peaceful was it that he did not notice the faint sounds of snapping branches nor the low growls around him that his heightened, inhuman hearing normally would have. As a matter of fact, it was not until he heard the fierce howl of an onrushing troll that the chimera realized he and his friends were to be prey. A mob of trolls fell in upon them in a flash, preparing to crush the small party with their sheer numbers.   
Not having much time to react, Zelgadis quickly cast Ray Wing in hopes of making a hasty retreat to the air. The spell was finished only moments too late, and Zelgadis found himself completely engulfed by a sea of snarling beasts, all pounding madly at his shield. Both arms extended, he grimaced as each blow to the shield reverberated through his body. "Everyone! Wake up!" he yelled, to no avail. "Lina! Amelia! Gourry!" A powerful strike against the air field knocked the breath out of him. Shuddering, he began to curse his luck. Destroying a small army of trolls was not a problem. Alternately, destroying a small army of trolls while flat on his back holding up a shield to protect his friends, who could be fried or crushed or impaled if he used a spell appropriate for such a situation, was slightly more difficult than he would have liked to handle.   
"WAKE UP!" Someone made a sound, but he could not tell who. He considered his options, and finally devised a plan just as the pounding in his head reached a peak. He firmly grasped Amelia around the waist, then threw a leg over Lina and Gourry, hoping he could hold onto them. _Please don't let them get caught in this spell..._ The trolls fell foward towards their victims for a split second as the shield came down. They were now the victims. One arm raised straight towards the sky, the shaman summoned the air once again. "BOMB DI WIND!"   
The hulking monsters were violently lifted into the air by swirling winds before they were strewn about the forest along with small trees, fire wood, and a multitude of leaves. Zelgadis tensed his body as the forces around him threatened to take his friends along with his adversaries. Before the short storm calmed, his friends awakened, screaming bloody murder and clutching at the leaden weight of a man to avoid being blown away. Except for Gourry. Gourry snored through the experience, only waking when the wind died down and Lina crashed atop of him.   
"What the hell!?" Lina fumed, looking as though she was about ready to crack the sorcerer's skull with her waving fist.   
"Trolls!" he spouted nervously at the fiendish look in her eyes. The red haired girl was not a morning person, and, moreso, definitely not a three-hours-until-the-sun-rises person. "There were a lot of trolls. They surrounded us. You wouldn't wake up, so I had no choice."   
"You're lucky," Lina growled. "Now lie down so we can get some sleep."   
Holding back a laugh, he humoured her. "Whatever you say."   
"What happened?"   
Amelia ignored Gourry as she watched the chimera lean back on his elbows. "Aren't you tired, Mister Zelgadis?" For the first time he looked at her wrapped up in his cape. She seemed small in it, hidden; it was draped over her shoulders with inches of the material resting on the ground around her feet. His shirt was in her hand, one of the sleeves also in the dirt. She looked tired, worn, but her large navy eyes showed only concern.   
He swallowed hard. "Na.. not particularly."   
"You look tired. How long have you gone without sleep?"   
"Three days. Someone has to keep watch."   
Gourry stood up, stretching his arms to the sky. "I'll take watch. Amelia's right, Zel, you do look tired. You've got dark spots under your eyes and everything."   
"Those are rocks," Zelgadis retorted somewhat peevishly upon being reminded.   
"Whatever," Lina interrupted, standing herself. "I don't care how long you can go without sleep, we need you sharp for tomorrow in case we meet any more trouble. And besides that, if you pass out from exhaustion or something, there's no way we can carry you."   
"i could carry him..." Gourry mumbled to himself defiantly.   
Feeling no particular urge to protest, Zelgadis allowed Lina and Gourry to wander off to a good vantage point. He sat up as Amelia kneeled down next to him, ready to get her bed back. Her hand inched towards his shoulder, and met only with his cape. Zelgadis quickly wrapped it around her once again, folding his shirt on his chest while he prepared to rest again.   
She examined the situation, the way the cloth was wrapped around her in a way that her arms would not come out if she did not deliberately wish them to. "You're avoiding me. You really don't want to be touched."   
Upon eye contact, the first turquoise glimpse was curious, but the second, sustained one was sad. "I said I didn't want you to. I meant it."   
"But I was sleeping on you..."   
He ran his hands through silver hair. "I know, but.... I don't want to get into this... Please don't touch me, okay?"   
They both laid down, half of Amelia covering half of Zelgadis. "Okay. I won't if you don't want me to," she murmured. He held her shoulder, squeezed it reassuringly, and she realized she had never really touched his skin. His clothing, yes, she had fallen into him and had been carried by him many times. She had played with his hair that had been pulled out courtesy of a table top. Though, yesterday, for an instant, he had wiped her face with his hand, the throbbing of her head did not allow for sensation. Never had she felt the stone skin of the chimera. She frowned.   
Long minutes passed, and neither could sleep.   
Amelia sighed, trying to think of something to say. "Thank you for protecting us from those trolls."   
"No need to thank me. Any of you would have done the same." That brought a sharp end to the conversation.   
Long afterwards, Amelia spoke up once again. "Mister Zelgadis.... why don't you.... I mean.... if you're looking for a cure.. you should stay in Saillune."   
"What makes you say that?"   
"Well," she defended her words, "If you learned to be a cleric, there's a good chance that you'll be able to cure yourself, isn't there? Saillune is the white magic capital, after all."   
"Do you know how to cure me?" he quipped.   
She stuttered, "Ah... well... n.. no. But I've never studied white magic that intensely."   
"Do you know of any spells that could help me?"   
"Well... no."   
"Then how can learning white magic help me?"   
"It wouldn't hurt to learn," she reasoned.   
"Maybe resurrection," he offered. "I do want to learn that spell eventually, but I have no real desire to master white magic."   
"Why?"   
"Amelia.. What if I did learn white magic, and I mastered it, and I still couldn't cure myself?"   
She considered it a moment, tilting her head into his chest as she thought. She tried to look at his face, but the angle she was laying at prevented it. She gave up thinking as soon as she gave up trying to look at him. "I don't know."   
Calmly and without noticing her efforts, he continued, "I'd have to master black magic then, wouldn't I?"   
"I don't get it."   
"Well, if I went to all the trouble to master white magic for no reason, then I should at least learn black magic. Otherwise, learning white magic would have been a complete waste of time. If I was going to learn spells solely for a cure, then I'd have to keep mastering spells until I found one."   
"So?" Amelia asked, still confused.   
"After I wasted all that time and energy on black magic, and still did not find a cure, I'd have to find another spell, right? Perhaps something a monster could do..."   
"No!" She sprang up into a sitting position, staring at him in shock. "No! That's wrong! You wouldn't...!"   
"That's why I won't learn magic solely to find a cure, because I'm afraid there isn't one," he concluded. "I won't become the next Rezo."   
Her eyes widened and her voice died out. "re...zo...?"   
"Rezo went insane trying to cure his blindness. He mastered every magic imaginable, and eventually revived a Dark Lord to regain his sight," he reminded her. "I refuse to allow what happened to him become my fate as well. That's why I would rather find someone else to cure me, or find a definite spell, than go at it haphazardly."   
"mister zelgadis..." There was a kindness in her eyes, a yearning to help that unnerved him. He wasn't expecting it.   
"Are you going to sleep or not?" he asked brusquely.   
"I.. don't think so. No."   
He sighed. "Well, I'm tired. Good night. Or morning." He turned away from her and towards the fire, almost instantly closing his eyes and losing consciousness. 

"I know you're supposed to fan a fire to keep it going, Miss Lina but..."   
"Do you want breakfast or not?"   
"I don't like eating fish very much, Lina. Couldn't we just wait until we get to town? .... Why don't you want Lina to keep the fire going, Amelia?"   
"Well, I'm hungry, Mister Gourry, but Mister Zelgadis is right there, and..."   
"And we got food for him, too, so...."   
"That's not my point. The point is.."   
"Got it! Ah... oh! Oh, no..."   
"That's what I was talking about!"   
He wavered as heat traveled up his leg. Slowly, he opened his eyes.   
"What are you going to do, Miss Lina?"   
"Ah... AQUA CREATE!" Lina flicked her wrist with her hand open and water gushed up in a geyser out of nowhere.   
Zelgadis awoke with a start as the water coated him, running off his hair and soaking into his clothes and, slightly, skin. "What the..!"   
"Ehheh... Sorry, Zel. We were just trying to keep the fire going."   
He sat up, panting from shock, to find a sizable hole burnt into his pants, exposing his thigh. He covered his face in his hand and sighed into it. Water still dripped from his hair to his face. "What did I do to deserve this?"   
"You were the one who wanted to run off," Lina chided. "The fact that we're out here is all your fault in the first place."   
"This is all your fault," Zelgadis argued. "You're the one who insisted we stay out here last night."   
Lina grinned. "You should have known better than to sleep so close to a fire. If you were going to insist on sleeping that close to a fire, you should have taken all your flammables off."   
Zelgadis sweatdropped and Amelia blushed. Hurriedly, she cried, "Miss Lina, you put the fire out with that spell!!"   
One Flare Arrow, thirteen burnt fish, and three miles later, they reached the next town. 

"Whoo hoo! Time for some real breakfast, guys!" Lina cheered, picking up her pace.   
"It's past lunch, Miss Lina."   
"Whatever, I just want to eat!"   
"Lina, where'd Zelgadis go?"   
The three travelers turned around, looking in every direction to find their lost member. "If he ran off again, I'll..."   
"You go to the inn. Leave finding him to me," she bid them. "I think I know where he is."   
As she had thought, he remained in a clearing at the edge of town, sunning himself on the grass with his shirt and cape in a bundle next to him. She smiled to see him stretched out, his, literally it seemed, chiseled, lean muscles baking in the midday sun. With his eyes closed, he almost seems peaceful there. "You're still wet?"   
His oblivion shattered, he coolly answered with eyes still closed, "Yes. Part of the problem with being made of rock, my skin absorbs water."   
She sat beside him, spreading her legs in the grass like a gymnast. "It could be worse," she pointed out, "You could have been badly burnt by that fire."   
He acknowledged, "True. But, if I wasn't a chimera, we wouldn't have been outside in the first place, as I would not be searching for a cure."   
She scratched her head, pondering ways to escape defeat. _He's got me there._ She shrugged. "So what are you going to do about those pants?"   
"I don't know. I usually mend them myself, but this is a bit much. I suppose I'll have to get new ones. The only problem is that I'll have to go to a tailor's shop, and if they take my measurements, they'll see my leg, and, well..."   
Amelia began to pout, "Don't you think maybe someone wouldn't care about your appearance?"   
"No."   
"You don't even try."   
"Trying could get me chased out of town." Then he thought to correct himself, "Trying HAS gotten me chased out of towns."   
"You know," the princess reprimanded, "not everyone judges people by their appearances."   
He brought himself up to her level, eyeing her incredulously as he laughed. "Oh? Like you?"   
Amelia gave him a look that could freeze a Dragon Slave. "Of course like me! I've been telling you that you look cool for years!"   
He smiled, and, without moving, looked up at the clouds. "Sure. Now you do, but when we first met, you were the one who said I was creepy looking."   
Absent-mindedly, she cracked her knuckles. "I... I didn't know any better."   
"Alright, then the townspeople don't know any better. I've still been treated like a monster. Not that I can blame them." He stared at his hand in disgust before she interrupted again.   
"If you give me your pants, I'll go get them mended in town."   
Once again his eyes diverted to her, somewhat surprised by her kindness. Besides that, he blushed. She had seen him in only his underwear before, he recalled, when he rescued Miwan from that water-dwelling monster. Remembering his short-lived infatuation with the false princess of Famille made his lavender complexion turn truly violet. With faked calmness, he slid off his remaining clothes and handed them over. She took all of his clothes when she stood up.   
"What?" he mumbled.   
Amelia fanned out his cape in the air, holding it up for close inspection. "This is full of tears and mendings and... it's a mess! All of your clothes are!" She bundled them up as she chewed him out. "You've been wearing the same clothes for two ye... no, since I've known you! You've all but grown out of them. I'm willing to be your boots don't even fit you right anymore."   
Zelgadis laughed softly and shrugged. "I never think about it. I can't tell, honestly. My skin is too...." he struggled for a word, "insensitive? Hard... I can't feel too much in terms of...."   
"Get new clothes!"   
"I'm particular to those."   
"Whatever," the young woman growled. "I'm going to get these fixed. Wait here."   
Not able to hold back, he yelled to her as she left the clearing, "Do you want me to clean my room as well, Mom?"   
She screamed back, "Don't you start! And CHEER UP ALREADY!!"   
The chimera blinked. He was not expecting her to say that. Laying back down, he stared at the redness of the sun through his eyelids. A small smile played on his lips as he thought of Amelia and all her attempts to comfort him. _It's pathetic, really. Me falling for her?_ His eyelids squeezed even tighter together; a sort of pain shot into his eyes like needles. _No. I'm not falling for her. I don't love her. It's not an option. She's a princess, and I'm a.. a monster, of all things._ Thoughts of being a prince --he would have to be a prince-- flashed in his mind. Amelia would try to explain away the fears of the people, why their future co-ruler so resembled the villains that often shattered the peace of their land. He would probably be killed, or, worse yet, Amelia would be killed and he driven into exile without her. No. It was not that he did not love her so much as he could not love her, much like the same way he could not go into town for new clothes even if he wanted them.   
He rolled over and crawled into the shade of the trees around him. The bright, warm sunshine was not the place for him. Zelgadis belonged in the shadows. Staring at a tree as his vision blurred, he punched a five inch deep hole in it, before he laid down with the pain in his stomach and chest. _I shouldn't even think of her_, he told himself. Vaguely, he thought of how Amelia had taken his canteen before he fell into a troubled, light sleep. 

Xellos tapped his fingers against the limb he sat on. _Boring._ _Sure, Zelgadis is fun to watch, but I don't even need to be here. Amelia's doing all my work for me!_ He frowned as Zelgadis stopped moving, and the waves of pain that the monster thrived on shifted to tiny vibrations, even less entertainment for the trickster priest. _Maybe I'll go watch Lina for a while. She's always fun!_ Grinning from ear to ear, Xellos teleported to the in, all the while contemplating whether he should reveal himself to the travelers yet or not.   
  


Tsuzuku.....   


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html 


	5. Chapter Four: Change of Pace

**One Third Human**   
**Part Four**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honor, okay? Enjoy. 

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honor, okay? Enjoy. 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. Alternately, feel free to use diemwind@golem-fan.co.uk if you're on my webpage, Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation. I'll do my best to get back to you. Well, enough of that, on with the story.   
  
  


She had tried. Honestly, she had tried. She started by merely calling him, then yelling, neither of which had any effect. Then she nudged him, and threw her cape on him, then tried to turn him with her foot, nothing prevailed. She had to do it, she really had to do it. So she kicked him in the head to wake him up.   
Amelia was the one to cry out first. Zelgadis' head was much harder than she had anticipated. A low moan erupted from her target, and he rolled over but did not wake.   
"Will you get up already!?!" Once again he unconsciously ignored her. This time she gave up, flopping to the ground to sit, her legs crossed before she settled. "I know you didn't sleep much in the past few days, but you're getting a bit ridiculous..." Her words let up as she studied his face which was turned away from her. In her mind, she tried to decide whether he was more handsome or pretty. She wrestled with it a while in her mind as she looked at him, and finally came up with 'good looking.' She grew sad to see that he certainly was not at peace in his sleep as so many others usually were. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut as if he were in pain, and she knew without seeing that his teeth were gritted in that closed mouth of his. She hoped he was only like that because she kicked him, but there was no hiding that he was having a nightmare. _Again._ Gourry had told her that Zelgadis had often woke up panting in the middle of the night whenever Gourry was awake enough to notice. There were also a few occasions when the swordsman was startled by a scream from the chimera, but those occasions were rare. Amelia even heard him once.   
It scared her to think of what could make such an undaunted person wake up screaming. Zelgadis almost never showed any emotion; even during the most impossible battles, he kept a reasonable cool until someone got hurt. _What could possibly scare him? Was what Rezo did to him, or how Rezo did it, so bad?_ It occurred to Amelia that one did not always have to scream in fear. She would scream if someone surprised her, or if she thought something was gross and creepy, but not scary. Maybe he had screamed in rage, or disgust. Amelia bit at her gloved thumb as she thought, _Maybe he hates himself that much_. _Or maybe...._ She looked at him with glossy eyes, so dark and reflective that, had he been awake, he could have seen himself in them. His form was so tense, yet fragile; he looked like a real statue, one made of a granular aqua glass that could break if touched the wrong way. _Maybe he's afraid of himself._ She wanted to stroke his hair as she wondered just what he saw the first time he looked in a mirror after his transformation. Although she now thought that the chimera looked cool, he had reminded her of how she felt the first time she saw him. _He was scary_, she admitted. _He was scary and his eyes were so cold._ He was a third demon; his eyes were narrow with just the slightest hint of colour. _When he isn't genuinely smiling, his eyes are intimidating_, she allowed. _They're nice when he is, though._   
With her teeth, she pulled her glove off, and lowered her hand mere inches above his hair. Yes, he had asked her not to touch him, but she felt as though he could use her touch for strength. Amelia so wanted to chase the nightmares away and give him peace, she wanted to heal him, if that's what he really wanted. In her own mind, she believed that no one deserved to have troubled dreams. He should be human when he falls asleep. She tempted her own index finger an acute distance from his pointed ear. Lightly, so lightly she could not even feel it, the princess grazed the tip of his ear. It was enough for him to minutely open one eye. "what?"   
Amelia pulled back quickly, shoving her hand into her glove. "I.. I touched your ear, a bit... c..cos you wouldn't wake up!"   
The chimera groggily sat up. "oh? sorry, i dozed off." His lone opened eye made sure her gloves were on.   
Her disconcerting smile flashed on like a starting film when she realized she was in the clear. "It's alright, Mister Zelgadis. After all, your last nap was interrupted by your leg nearly being burnt off."   
He laughed through his nose, one breath. "Yeah," he affirmed with a gritty, sleep leaden voice. "Are my clothes...?"   
The princess shook her head. "Not yet. It hasn't been that long. I just brought you some food from the inn while you're waiting."   
Rubbing his visible eye with one hand, he pointed at a basket within the princess' grasp with the other. She grinned, closing her eyes to be as innocently cute as possible. "I thought you'd like some company, so I packed a picnic lunch." Beneath his hand and hair, his eyes went wide, yet that remained hidden.   
"uhm... thanks."   
Like most meals without Lina and Gourry to spice them up, theirs started quietly. As always, Zelgadis was aphonic, and, as always, Amelia was unsure of what to say. This time, however, Zelgadis felt bad about the silence, and wanted to make the girl who so comforted him comfortable. He let his fork rest on his lower lip an instant before asking, for lack of anything better to say, "How's your father?"   
Amelia swallowed a bit of meat too fast in her eagerness to hear him. After coughing and chugging some water, she replied happily, "Oh, Daddy's doing fine. He's going to get the crown soon."   
If he had an eyebrow, it would have perked up. "Did the King die?"   
"No, no! It's just the natural progression of things, you know? He's old is all, old, and he thinks Daddy's more than ready. Daddy has been running things for a while now, years, actually."   
"Which would make you next in line for the throne."   
The princess nodded. "Yes, although they're not likely to give the throne to me if I don't marry. Usually it's to the next male heir."   
The eyebrow would be cocked. "You don't plan to marry?" he half stated, half wondered.   
"Of course I do! Just because I'm a Defender of Justice doesn't mean I can't be a bride," she huffed. Then she froze. Then she realized what she had said. Then she realized who she was talking to. Then she turned fire engine red.   
Zelgadis looked at the trees to the right of the clearing, giving Amelia a spectacular view of his hair, and only his hair. She would have enjoyed the smirk playing on his lips, the awkward sense of pride shining in his eyes. With nothing better to cloud his thoughts, he relished that she was still up for grabs and willing.   
"How did you wake up before?"   
He turned far enough towards her that she could see a part of his cheek. She grumbled inwardly to herself about the unfairness of it all; she knew he could see clearly through all that wire hair of his somehow, yet she could not see an inch of his face.   
"Huh? Wake up how?"   
"I barely touched your ear."   
"Oh," he nearly exclaimed, not daring to show enthusiasm over talking to her. "I heard you. You know how when someone rubs your ear, you can hear it rather well? My hearing is more sensitive than most --you know that-- so it sounded loud."   
As if understanding for the first time, she noted aloud, "So your sense of touch is muted, but everything else picked up."   
He simply nodded as he took another bite of his meal.   
Eagerly, Amelia inquired, "What can you hear now?"   
Without moving an inch, he looked at her. He finished the last portion of his platter, took one sip of lukewarm coffee from a canteen, and leaned back on his hands. After a long moment of meditation, he clarified, "Right now?"   
Eyes sparkling with unbound curiosity, she goaded him on, "Right now. Tell me everything you can hear."   
The chimera released a sharp breath through his nose, a half laugh. Never had he actually concentrated on what he could hear. Zeroing in on a specific sound, he had done that, but never just taken in everything. He sighed. "Well, I can hear my breathing and my pulse... but that's a given. There are some animals in the forest, somewhere, making sounds, moving through branches, things like that. Birds." He breathed again, and tried to open his senses without focusing on any one thing. His eyes closed. "You... I can hear your breathing.. There's a brook or something somewhere around here." Blue eyelids opened and he exhaled. "That's about it."   
"That's amazing, Mister Zelgadis. It really is." Amelia swooned over her newfound understanding of him.   
One side of his closed mouth lifted. He had impressed her. 

Xelloss sweatdropped. Sure, Lina was Lina, but after a long absence it was still a shock to see. Lina and Gourry were at each others' throats once again, as the meal had boiled down to it's last legs. Literally. Chicken legs. Both had a fork embedded into the plate, each space between twines housing a bone wrapped in savory white meat.   
"You have no manners!" Lina scolded between gritted teeth. "The last dish should go to a Lady!"   
"I always thought it was ladies first..." Gourry mused, confused.   
"First to eat the last dish!"   
A knowing glint shone brightly in the blonde's eye. "No, Lina, you're wrong. I'm going to get the chicken."   
"You....!" Lina tried to wrench the entire plate up in one swift movement, and the table shook as two primal forces (or stomachs) collided.   
"My my," the purple haired priest exclaimed. "You two haven't changed a bit in all these years."   
"Not now, Xelloss!" Lina growled. "We're in the middle of something here!"   
"Hey! Xelloss!" The swordsman managed to grin at the monster while he kept tight hold on his fork. "Long time, no see!"   
Lina saw her opportunity! Quietly she lisped, "freeze arrow." The quick freeze paid off as Gourry's fork promptly snapped, and Lina gobbled the chicken legs before he could even open his confounded mouth.   
"Hey! You ate the chicken!"   
The grin on the redhead's face grew wider and wider as she wiped the sauce off her lips.   
"That's unfair, Lina. You always get the last of the food..."   
"So what have you two been up to?" Xelloss interjected upon the pouting and gloating.   
"Oh," sighed the sorceress. "Not much. We're going to help Zel find his cure. You're not coming along, are you?"   
"Oh, no, no," the monster replied in a smooth, denying voice. "I'm just passing through and thought I'd say hello."   
Lina raised an eyebrow. "Really? Well, it's good to see you again, at any rate. So.. just what are you doing here, anyway?"   
Xelloss smiled, bringing a finger up to his lips. "Now that is a secret."   
Shaking her head knowingly, she suggested, "As glad as I am to see you, I do suggest you hightail it before Zelgadis comes in. He's been... well, himself lately, if you get my drift."   
"True, he has been rather snippy lately," the trickster offered.   
Ruby eyes questioned him momentarily, only to be answered by a smug, growing smile on an unreadable face.   
"Well, must get back to work. It was a pleasure, Lina." With that, the mysterious priest left the room filled with questions as he walked out the door. 

He studied his mended garments with admiration as he tied his cape on. The tailors had certainly done a wonderful job, not leaving one hole or rip untouched. Their stitching was so precise that he could not even make out a seam. _No seams..._ He frowned while clasping his ward over the knot he had made. "How much do I owe you?" he asked, an annoyed undertone in his voice.   
Ignoring it, Amelia replied, "Nothing at all. Believe me, the repair bill was really minimal. Not even worth mentioning."   
Zelgadis buckled his belt, pulling his shirt down so that the extra material fell evenly over his hips. "It's sad to realize how little you think of me."   
"how little i think of you?" Amelia mirrored sheepishly.   
"These aren't my clothes."   
The princess laughed nervously. "Well, you see, I really thought you needed new ones, so I just told the tailor to look at yours, then add a couple inches here or there. It didn't cost that much to convince him to do your clothes immediately..."   
"How much?"   
She pouted her lips in a mixture of annoyance and chagrin. "Why do you always have to be like this? I'm a princess, Zelgadis. I can afford it. If Lina makes me pay for all her food, then one clothing bill isn't that bad. Besides, you guys are my friends, and what kind of friend am I if I let you walk around in rags when I have a kingdom?"   
The chimera did not want to owe her one, but could not argue against her, he knew. Instead, with a slight scowl, he offered, under his breath, "thank you."   
Amelia diverted her gaze from him, touching her collarbone in a calm nervousness. "zelgadis..." He was walking away from her again, steamed over something, although she could not tell what. She had done him a favor, and it seemed as if she had returned earlier in the day with the clothes, he would have been thankful. Instead he was storming off into the safety of the town. She caught up with him quickly, running ahead of him. "Mister Zelgadis, what's wrong?" She held her position fast; she was not about to let him leave like this.   
He dismissed her presence as he passed her. "Mister Zelgadis!" The princess took hold of his sleeve. Like lightning he whipped his arm away from her grasp, spinning to face her as he did so. "Don't touch me!" he hissed.   
For a split second, Amelia was afraid while peering into the eyes of a madman. Inhuman turquoise slits revealed all the same psychotic rage that could be seen in Phibrizzo, Gaav, and Rezo. She wanted to scream.   
However, the phase left within his next half breath, and the chimera tightly closed his eyes as he felt it let go. He stood silent for the longest time, and Amelia tried to recover from the shock.   
"Ze.. Mister Zelgadis...."   
"Why in the world do you have to do that?" he almost snarled, hiding his face passively in his hand. Weariness seeped into his voice.   
Amelia blinked. "Do what? I didn't mean to upset... to touch.."   
"No." He sighed, "Mister Zelgadis, Miss Lina... You're a princess, dammit. We should be calling you 'Miss.'"   
"I don't want you to," she explained. "Everyone calls me 'Princess,' but I like it when you.. and Miss Lina and Mister Gourry just call me Amelia." She vacantly looked skywards. "Why? Does that bother you?"   
Zelgadis allowed his hand to fall to his side. "Of course it bothers me. I'm not your damned superior, am I?"   
She tried her best to discern his emotion, and failed. As happy as she was to hear that he wanted her to lose the formalities, it did not seem to be for the desired reasons. "M.. Zelg..."   
"Zell-gah-diss," he assisted sarcastically.   
"Zelgadis.." He frowned as she said it. "What's wrong?" This time her unwavering concern and fierce stand broke him down... slightly.   
"I'm not sure."   
Optimistically, she proposed, "Well, maybe if we talked.."   
"I'm fine."   
"oh."   
There was another long, dead silence as they walked towards the town. In frustration, Zelgadis gripped his canteen tightly, only then realizing that it was not his canteen. Taken aback, he stopped as he looked for the wristlet.   
Amelia became extremely curious when he broke his stride. She leaned in close to him to share a stare at the canteen. "Something wrong?"   
A sort of lost expression was plastered on his face. "You bought me a new canteen."   
"Of course I did."   
"Did you pull anything off the old one?"   
She panicked. "You didn't have something important on it, did you?!" He timidly refused to answer. "Oh, Zelgadis, I'm so sorry! I'll get it right back!"   
"Err... You don't have to..."   
But she was off in a flash, zooming into the town at top speed.   
Her use of his name stunned him, the naturality of it, and he had to assure himself that it was only because he had told her to use it that it was so. Then he covered his face up as he started in his own race, rooftop to rooftop, to follow and beat Amelia to an item he did not want her to know he still possessed. 

She skidded to a halt inches before the counter.   
The tailor sweatdropped. "Eh, could I help you miss?" he asked the panting figure. The man's eye twitched all the while.   
"Yes... I.. came... got... outfit... for. friend... Canteen... something.. on..." Amelia wheezed, her stomach hurting from her expenditure of speed. _Why did I run so fast!?_ she half scolded herself.   
"That canteen, huh?" The man made his way into the back room to sort through the scraps he had just thrown away.   
She heard the sound of heavy footsteps behind her, the distinct sound of new leather soles against a hardwood floor. Still bent over, she looked slightly over your shoulder. "Mister... Zelgadis.."   
His name irked him again for about one second. "You can get going now," he said harshly. _She would have to run full speed the whole way._   
"Can't.... stand... up... quite..."   
As she tried to finish, the tailor walked back into the room, humming a cheerful tune. "Is this what you wanted?"   
Amelia's eyes widened as she saw the pink bracelet dangling around the man's finger, swinging back and forth by the weight of the sparkling blue ward upon it. With hope gushing from her entire being, she picked herself up to stare into Zelgadis' lone visible eye. "Is this what you wanted?"   
It looked like someone had thrown a bag of flour on him, his skin was so pale. "Uhm.. eh.... well.... y... ye..."   
He was saved by the perceptive tailor. "So this is that boy you like so much, Miss? Are you satisfied with the clothes, Sir?"   
The princess fell to the floor and Zelgadis nearly joined her. "L... like.....?" he tripped over words like furniture in the dark. "The c...clothes're f..fine!" He quickly snatched the ward off the tailor and paced rigidly out of the shop; Amelia on his heels in a fast escape.   
They both ignored everything that had gone on in the past minutes; a silent agreement was made to protect their sanity. But somewhere, deep inside, they both smiled, and Amelia could only question the lost opportunity. 

After a long argument, Lina finally persuaded the chimera that, if he did not want to be a mattress again, he would have to promise to meet up with the group in the morning. Finally, they rented rooms in an inn. However, Zelgadis promptly ran off in a pointless search for his cure. No one saw him again until late that night.   
He opened the door expecting darkness accompanied by the sound of Gourry's snoring. On the contrary, the man was practicing his swordplay by candle and moonlight. Zelgadis watched in curiosity a moment, wondering why the blonde, so fond of relaxation, was up in the middle of the night. Gourry only noticed him when he heard the door click shut, then turned to face his friend. "Long night," he offered with a smile.   
The chimera answered with a slight nod and a low noise of agreement. "What are you doing up?"   
"Practicing." He brandished his sword to illustrate.   
"Why?"   
Gourry frowned, eyeing his sword. "Lina bought me a new sword. She says it has magic, but............."   
Zelgadis finished for him, "It's not the Sword of Light."   
"Yeah." He looked pitiful in the dim light, like a dog not able to protect it's master.... like a soldier not able to protect his queen.   
"You're worried that you won't be able to help Lina in the future," Zelgadis concluded.   
"Yeah."   
"Look..." There was a long pause for contemplation, and he wrestled with the thought of bringing up what could be a fruitless suggestion. "If you can wield a magic sword, then maybe you have some potential for... well... magic."   
A grin crept over the swordsman's face. "I was hoping you'd say that. Lina always said that even an idiot could learn one spell."   
"I don't want to get your hopes up. It's a hard spell, but I'm willing to teach you if you want to try."   
"Which spell?" The jellyfish brains were getting the best of him.   
The chimera sighed. _Long night indeed._ He walked behind his friend, gripping the sword hilt and two large hands while trying to look over, and finally around, his shoulder. "Do you remember back when we fought Shabranigdo, I explained..... Never mind. It's like using the Sword of Light, only, instead of only using your energy, you're calling upon the energy around you as well, like in the air." He was avoiding the term Astral Plane at all costs. "Then focus as much as you can, and say..." Here his hands tensed, and Gourry could feel the energy radiating through his own... "Astral Vine."   
  


Tsuzuku.... 

Another part completed for your enjoyment. Many thanks to those who wrote me, and many to come for those who will. (please?) Anyway, send anything to mangetsu@email.com and I'll do my best to get back to you. Oh, and I now have fanart for this story on my webpage, if you want to check it out. 

Shell Presto   


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/index.html 


	6. Chapter Five: Optimism Comes with No Gua...

**One Third Human**   
**Part Five**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honour, okay? Enjoy. 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. Also, be sure to check out my webpage Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation for the fanart that goes with this story (as well as some other fanart that I've worked on, one of which made it into Animerica's Swimsuit special, which has been the shining moment of my entire life). I'll do my best to get back to you if you email. Well, enough of that, on with the story.   
  


His mouth watered, slightly, in a dignified sort of way. As did Amelia's as she inhaled the rich, spicy aroma that contained just a hint of sweetness. Lina and Gourry outright drooled, yet both hesitated to dive into their meal as they usually did, for on the table before them rested plates of the best cuisine in the world. Dragon cuisine was fit for kings, but truly it was only meant for red haired sorcery geniuses and their closest of friends.   
Zelgadis took his first bite pensively, letting the rich juice of the meat linger on his tongue. It was savoury, to say the least, and he could immediately understand why it was said that kings moaned over eating it. It was gorgeousness and gorgeousity, in meat form. They were quiet as they ate that night, with good reason. Every bite was chewed delicately. Dragon cuisine truly was meant to be held in silent reverence, if only for the taste buds.   
There was so much dragon that even Lina and Gourry could not devour it all, and so it was available to others who had the pleasure of dining that night. As a result, merriment was to be expected. A small band was hired, and as dinner settled in the crowd's stomachs, strings and toms cast rousing melodies in the tavern.   
Lina was in such a good mood that she ordered drinks for her companions out of her own pocket. Amelia and Gourry drank fine wine with surprise and delight. Zelgadis smiled, almost stunned with the good mood he was in. It seemed as though everyone was happy tonight for such simple reasons: good food and good music. Some of the tables were pushed to make an impromptu dance floor to celebrate the last night of six months of dragon feasting. He watched some people get up to dance with no apparent thoughts in his mind, and heard the close sound of wood scraping wood as a sorceress and a swordsman pushed their chairs back to join the congregation of quick steppers.   
The chimera's eyes shifted pensively to Amelia as he heard her seat slide back as well.   
With a meek smile and a forced boldness in her voice, she asked, "We're going to dance, too, right?"   
His fingers, only moments before coiled into a fist to support his chin, now lightly rested on his lip. "dance?" he mumbled blankly. _I can't dance_, followed it up. "Why?"   
"Because I'm a lady and its the gentlemanly thing to do, you being here and Gourry being on the dance floor already," she pouted, hoping to convince him.   
"Someone else will ask you in a while," he quipped coolly.   
"It'll be a stranger."   
"I'll watch you, so nothing will happen."   
"I want to dance with you."   
He managed to keep the rest of his expression calm, but his eyes widened with shock. He knew that she felt that way, but for her to actually say it was something else entirely. Two years had never seemed like a longer time, and he thought she had grown more than he could have imagined. As his thought process reeled, he realized he had to say something. Slowly, he succeeded in a, "what?"   
The princess reclaimed her place on the chair next to him. "I won't dance with anyone except you, Mi.... Z... ah...."   
"Zelgadis."   
"zelgadis."   
"I hate to disappoint you, but dancing isn't really my thing," he solemnly informed her with a half smile.   
She wrung her hands in the bottom of her shirt. "I know, but I'm hoping you'll reconsider."   
Zelgadis studied her under the hood of his cloak. Navy eyes were glistening with a somber hope, trying to catch his eyes for a glimpse of his soul. He watched the floorboards. "You're optimistic."   
"Shouldn't I be?"   
All the forward, simple retorts were unnerving him. Mainly because he did not know the answer to any of them. "I... don't know."   
"Have you ever danced before... zelgadis?"   
His ears perked once again with the mention of his name. The chimera was starting to like the sound of it. "Not in years."   
Pensively, she offered, "I can teach you."   
"I know how."   
"Oh." She accepted defeat as she relaxed, leaning onto the table for support as she watched her friends dance. Amelia gave into the great wall before her and the knowledge that drawing the human side out of Zelgadis was like trying to scratch through a rampart with a toothpick.   
The fact that he had depressed her made something within him ache, and also question what he was doing. Suddenly he was no longer part of the happiness around him, and the dancers and the music turned strange and surreal. Again, as they always were. And he thought for an instant that maybe they should not be. Or maybe he was tired. He was not sure, but either way, he mumbled, "maybe one dance. if you don't mind a novice."   
Amelia stared blankly at him for a moment before grinning. "I'm sure you'll pick it up again fast, Zelgadis." Her zest was unnerving, and for once he found he liked it.   
They stood before each other as if naked, avoiding eye contact at all costs. Suddenly dancing seemed intimate, and in a way it was. They would have to hold hands, move in synch. Zelgadis would have to allow her to touch his shoulder in a non combat situation. Their hands shook nervously as they clasped together. Amelia's fingers tensed around the chimera's hand like a vice as her glove absorbed the cold moisture forming in her palm. Zelgadis had to use every ounce of self control to keep his hand from having the same reaction in fear that he would crush her hand into paste. Their feet moved in a jittery manner, ignoring the tempo of the music or any steps that they had learned. Zelgadis watched her feet like two beacons, making absolute sure he did not step on them.   
"Sorry," he apologized distractedly, still concentrating on her boots. "I'm not very good at this."   
"I know, but I like it anyway. It's more entertaining than dancing with anyone else."   
He paused to look at her, and she stepped on his foot. "Really?"   
For a moment, she thought she caught a glimpse of a smile, but it disappeared before she could confirm it, and they were trying, and failing, to keep up with the rousing music once again.   
The chimera stopped with the music, and immediately returned to his seat. Amelia followed, walking all the more slowly with disappointment. "Aren't you enjoying yourself?"   
"No." He could not tell himself, so it seemed like an appropriate answer.   
"Would you rather go out for a walk?" she requested, that gleam growing in her eyes.   
_This is getting ridiculous! Why is she being like this... Why with me?_ "No."   
Before she could ask anything else, he stood up and began walking towards the door. A discouraged young woman rose, calling a name to decidedly deaf ears. "Mister Zelgadis!"   
_I'm sorry, Amelia, but I can't let you do this to yourself._ It was, in his mind, time to leave the group.   
"Mister Zelgadis!" A small, gloved hand took hold of a tan hood in hopes of making its owner yield. He did, momentarily, as the material around his neck jerked back. The chimera turned around sharply to yell, and a couple ran right into his back. Another one hundred eighty degree turn was met by a shrill scream, and all eyes in the room turned to Zelgadis.   
Everything in the room froze: people, music, dancing. He wanted to pull his hood up, hide his face once again, but he knew by now it was a moot point. Eventually the crowd's many voices began to work, and whispers of "What the hell is that?" and "What does it want?" could be heard by ultra sensitive hearing. He could feel the pull at the base of his skull, telling him to act before things got too bad. _But maybe she needs to see this...._   
"mister... zelgadis....." Even Amelia found her eyes inexplicably locked onto the chimera. Never had his looks seemed so different than when forty normal looking people were gawking at a face seemingly carved of stone.   
"Is it a monster?"   
Some people left immediately.   
"I've never seen anything like that."   
A traveler opened his mouth. "I know I've seen him before."   
"There were rumours..."   
Lina slowly backed into Gourry as she clenched her fist. "go get your sword," she whispered to the tall blonde. "and let's get out onto the street. something tells me anything can happen."   
"Someone said there was a man in a brown cloak breaking into temples..."   
Everything was still.   
A shaking bartender, a large man of an older variety, a settled adventurer, approached Zelgadis. "Sir," he said, keeping a calm consistency in his voice. "I would appreciate it if you left."   
Somber eyes met the man's. "Sure."   
"My cousin sent word of explosions at a temple last week."   
Lina and Gourry walked out of the tavern, grabbing Amelia on their way.   
"But Miss LInummph..!"   
"I hear there's a reward for bringing down that guy."   
"Reward?"   
Zelgadis slowly made his way out of the building, fear pushing onlookers out of his way like a polarized force. As soon as he took ten good paces out of the tavern, he was stopped.   
"Hey you."   
Zelgadis paused, but did not turn around. His friends watched from their post three houses down, where they stood ready for a fight, or to protect him, if there was a need.   
"Yeah, freak, you. Turn around and look at me."   
Freak. The word echoed in the chimera's mind. Freak._ An utterly degrading word,_ he thought. Different shades of red melted into black, coating his vision. He almost snarled as he whipped around to face them.   
He did not hear two females yelling in the distance, "DON'T!"   
"BOMB DI WIND!"   
Men, bricks, wood, and swords were tossed into the air like flurries in a gale. A rooftop was partially torn from a house. Lina and Amelia both threw up a shield just in time. Debris battered and jarred their personal safe haven, while Gourry remained on his knees behind them. When the miniature storm abated, people stared in shock and horror out the windows of the tavern. Zelgadis lowered his eyes, smiled, and asked in a near whisper, "Anyone else care to try?" Everyone heard him, but only one person replied, unconsciously shaking their head "no." He walked out of town, and, inadvertently, towards his friends.   
"Mister Zelgadis! How could you!?" Amelia near shrieked as she ran towards him. He did not stop.   
"They deserved it."   
"Come on, Zel!" Lina chimed in. "Even you have to admit that was a bit much!"   
Slyly, he threw her a sardonic glance. "You're one to be telling me about overkill, Ms. Dragon Slave."   
Gourry cupped his chin. "You know, he's got a point, Lina. You are notorious for.."   
Lina's jaw dropped. "What did you say?!"   
"You're notorious.."   
"Notorious!?"   
"Yeah.. you know, for overreacting."   
"When did you learn as big a word as notorious!?"   
"I.."   
"Miss Lina! That isn't the issue right now! Zelgadis just really hurt some innocent people!"   
"They weren't innocent," he scowled. "They were, if you hadn't noticed, trying to kill me."   
"They couldn't have killed you!" the princess argued, tears forming in her eyes with anger.   
"Oh? So I was just supposed to stand there and let them try?"   
"You could have killed them! Maybe you did; we don't even know!"   
"Good riddance."   
His cool, casual demeanor was getting under her skin. She'd never known him to be so cruel, no matter how much he acted it in the past. "ZelGAdis..!"   
Lina could not see this going anywhere good, and decided to break it up before the conversation turned ugly. "Whoa! Hold it you two! Amelia, it's Zelgadis' decision how he wants to handle people who come after him." The redhead now stood between the couple with her arms spread.   
"But..!"   
Before Amelia could interrupt, Lina turned to face her blue skinned companion. "And you, Zel, should know better than to go ballistic on people who don't know any better, eSPECially in front of Amelia."   
"Fine," he growled. "Can we just get going now? I never asked any of you to come along."   
Amelia walked in silence, watching in wonderment, wishing she knew how and why the man she thought she loved one hundred percent had become so violent. 

"I want you to talk to me."   
"Amelia.." He did not have it in him to talk. The sun had just about set, and for once he was actually looking forward to getting a good night's sleep. The chimera was emotionally worn; he felt like a sledgehammer had gotten to the last of his sanity, and he desperately wanted respite. He buried his head in his hands as he sat on the bed. He had not even gotten the chance to change into his bedclothes. "Not tonight."   
Her fist clenched. "Tonight. You've been moody ever since that night we had dragon cuisine. You haven't said so much as a word to any of us since then, and it's been nearly a week! What's wrong?"   
"Nothing," he sighed.   
"I won't accept that. You've never been..."   
He cut her off sharply, his voice ragged with annoyance, "I said NOTHING."   
"Nothing my ass!" She froze, unable to believe the word that had come out of her mouth. It got Zelgadis' attention as well, wiping away even his expression as he stared blankly at her. She fumbled for what to say next. "Uhm.. uhm.. I'm sorry."   
His eyes narrowed, but Amelia could not tell if it was in aggravation or playfulness. "You've been spending too much time with Lina; she's rubbing off on you."   
"Uhm.. no! Well.. yes.. but.... I..." The princess watched herself wrap her cape in between and around her fingers. "I mean... It's just... You have me very worried... and upset."   
He frowned. "I told you, all of you, not to get involved."   
"But we are involved; we're your friends! And you need Miss Lina to talk to Mister Milgesia for you, don't you?"   
"There are no guarantees that, even if Milgesia lets us through, that the Claire Bible still exists or that there is a cure for me."   
"No spell is unbreakable."   
The weary chimera looked at her innocent, persevering face and wanted to smile. _Always that incorruptible hope._ He wished he had it. He breathed heavily, then solemnly shook his head. "I'm tired, though, and I really want to sleep."   
"No."   
A calm facade masked what would have been a truly nasty response. "You're starting to upset me, Amelia."   
She crossed her arms. "I don't care. You haven't been acting yourself..."   
"I HAVE been acting myself. It's been two years, Amelia. People change. I've changed, and I don't particularly care what you think of it."   
Her eyes glossed a bit. "But you were supposed to change for the better. You said you wanted to be off on your own.."   
"I did."   
"You're worse now."   
"You wouldn't understand."   
"I know," she painfully admitted. "I know I can't understand what you're going through, but I do know that it can't hurt to talk about it."   
"What?" he asked slyly.   
"What what?" Her eyes widened in confusion.   
"Talk about what?"   
"How you're feeling."   
"In reference to..." he trailed off, giving a genuine impression of Gourry.   
"What's happened to you these past few years," Amelia reiterated in disbelief.   
He kept dragging her along. "What's happened to me these past few years?"   
"Are you feeling okay?" She stared at the ceiling. "You know.. being alone and searching for your cure, and not finding it, and whatever else happened. I'm sure you're upset about it, and probably mad, too."   
"Good." Zelgadis smiled knowingly and stood up.   
"What?"   
He began to usher her out of the room. "There's nothing to talk about if you know it all, already."   
"But I didn't..!" she protested as he cupped her shoulder and led her to the door. She felt trapped, distraught. Amelia could not believe what he was doing. She instantly wanted to cry, and moreso wanted to know what happened to the Zelgadis she knew.   
Quick as lightning the moment he opened the door she slammed it shut screaming, "NO!" She turned on him, yelling. "What's wrong with you?! You've never been like this before! You're cold and moody and distant, and you're worrying the heck out of all of us! Why can't you just open up for once!? Can't you see that you're hurting me as well?!"   
He paused. "No. I guess I don't see that."   
The princess immediately calmed down. "What good are friends if you don't use them? We're here for you, Mister Zelgadis."   
"I should leave," he mumbled dejectedly, reaching for the door.   
She placed her hand over his, barring movement. "You could have left anytime if you really wanted to. You want to stay, admit it."   
His free hand met with his forehead. "I... don't know. Amelia, please, I'm not..."   
Out loud, she wondered, "Can't you see there's more to life than your cure?"   
"No," he stated bluntly. "There isn't, and you can't... can never understand why. What happened at the tavern was one reason."   
"Do you hate your appearance that much?"   
"It's not just my appearance!" he huffed.   
"There has to be something else for you to live for," she suggested hopefully.   
He sat down on the bed, head in hands. "You guys, I guess. Sometimes."   
She accompanied him on the bed, wringing her hands in her lap. "Please tell me what's going on, Zelgadis."   
Once again, his name disturbed him, and he did not question that she used it this time for intimacy. "I don't want to."   
"Why? It's obviously.."   
"It has nothing to do with you, so..."   
Shyly, she interrupted, "I want to hear it anyway."   
He sighed, "Why?" He wanted to yell it.   
Quietly, as they both stared at the floor, she murmured, "Because I love you, Mister Zelgadis."   
  
  
  


Tsuzuku...   


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
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	7. Chapter Six: Lucky

**One Third Human**   
**Part Six**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, and various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honour, okay? Enjoy. 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. Also, be sure to check out my webpage Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation for the fanart that goes with this story (Also, be aware that when I get my hands on a scanner I will post the first few pages of One Third Human: the fancomic.). I'll do my best to get back to you if you email. Well, enough of that, on with the story.   
  


She did not hear him gasp. He did not hear himself gasp. Zelgadis had to make a conscious effort to keep every single reaction in check, keep his eyes from widening, keep his breathing steady, make sure he did not utter a word in response before thinking about it. The gasp won the competition with all the other reflexes, but it was an empty victory. Emotions that had died long before they could have been born shot up into the back of his neck and into his mind like a bullet. It was the happiest moment of his life. Moment. Then his brain kicked in with lightning speed. Images of blood flashed through his mind like a movie projector gone haywire, all having to do with Amelia. Four seconds after Amelia had spoken six fateful words, he let his emotions spread across his face into a deep, bitter frown. "You're a fool, Amelia."   
The princess felt a sob in her throat. "Don't say that. There's a lot to like about you. There's a lot that I like about you."   
Matter of factly he informed her, "It will never work."   
"Because you're a chimera, right?" she near whimpered, emotion seeping up her throat.   
He could not find an answer.   
"Is that why, Zelgadis?" her voice was rising.   
An answer was not coming on its own.   
Frustration leaked into her words. "Because you're a chimera?"   
He wanted an answer.   
"Is that why?"   
Any answer except what he wanted to say.   
"Well?"   
Words he had never said before were pushing at his throat.   
"Is it?"   
Human words, not his, not anymore.   
"Because you don't consider yourself human anymore?!"   
She was crying because of him.   
"Is that it?!"   
For him.   
"Because you don't think..."   
She would cry more if he said.....   
"you're..."   
Because he was not...   
"...good enough to...."   
He wanted to tell her how he...   
"...love me."   
He needed an answer.   
"Well!?" Her voice was all rage while her face was all sadness, tears streaming like blood from a spiritual flesh wound.   
The human side of him wanted to grit his teeth, yet it was the human side of him that also forced him to hold a somber expression. "I don't feel the same about you. I'm sorry."   
Her breathing was cold, and his ears heard a slight crackle as her neck turned her face away from him. "You don't..." Amelia truly believed that she had found a place in his heart, somewhere. "at all?"   
Zelgadis covered his face with his hand in a gesture that appeared to read "deep thought." The guise was to keep himself in check as heat built up behind his eyes, to muffle a voice that wanted to break; although he could not understand why. "Not at all. I don't...." _So hard to say...._ "love you."   
She staggered up. "I'm sorry for... I mean I didn't...." The weakest, most genuine, most tortured smile he had ever seen shown before his eyes as she sobbed, "What's important is that you know someone cares, though. That's what's important."   
The young woman managed to make it to her bed before she was completely overwrought by pain and gripping despair.   
He cried. He cried harder than when a young man found out that his curse was permanent, incurable. He cried harder than when that same young man had first looked into a mirror to see a monster. He did not know why he was crying, and it hurt more than any wound or knowledge he had ever received. He felt human again, vulnerable, yet his stone hands grated against his stone eyelids to try to stop tears. He hated his face. He wanted to tear it off, shatter it and see the blood underneath, but even his skeleton had his unnatural fangs, even his eyes had that demonic look to them. There was no escaping his curse. He damned Rezo a thousand times as he locked the door and walked to the window, wanting to find solace in the burning moonlight. 

His guard was lowered; it took him until she was halfway across the room until he heard the soft sound of her footsteps. His tears had long since dried, and the sobbing in the room next to him had died down. "You shouldn't be in here, Lina. As a matter of fact, you shouldn't have been able to get in here," he scolded, not turning to face her.   
She smiled her daring bandit-killing-dragon-slaying Lina smile, but it was empty. Her disheartened voice forced her cocky tone, "C'mon, Zel, did you really think that I didn't know a simple unlock spell?"   
The chimera leaned a little more heavily on the window frame. "Not really. You shouldn't have come in, although.... as long as you're here...." His voice faded to the palest shade of itself, ".........how is she?"   
The cockiness was instantly sucked from Lina's throat. "She's... devastated, of course." Zelgadis winced, closed his eyes, and Lina wanted to ease his suffering just as much as she had tried to with Amelia's. "She didn't give any warning that she would tell you so soon. Otherwise I would have talked her out of it."   
His eyes locked onto the reflection of Lina's worried face in the window. "Does she.... hate me now?"   
Lina sighed, the casual sharpness returning to her voice, "Of course not, Zel. Feelings like that don't just turn sour so easily. She loves you, that won't go away. I mean, she'll definitely get over you in a while; she's young and all, so you don't have much to worry about."   
Her proud voice made him edgy, and he agreed, "That's good."   
Zelgadis nearly jumped when he realized that Lina's accusing reflection was staring hard at his own. A slightly dark and heavily knowing voice erupted from within her. "Of course, that is what you want, isn't it?"   
"Why wouldn't I want it that way?" he whispered to the sky.   
"Because you care about her, Zel. You like her, don't you?" Lina asked softly.   
"I don't know." He turned to her, eyes blazing with silent rage. "But that doesn't matter now, not..."   
"She won't wait forever, Zel!" Lina argued away his point before he could get it out. "Besides that, if you don't have it in you to figure out your feelings now, you'll never..."   
"It'll change when I'm human again!"   
"Will it, Zel?" the redhead questioned intolerably. "You've spent so much time like this, hiding your feelings, keeping everything pent up inside of you, suffering with your past, do you really think that your cure will make all the scars go away?"   
He was silent. 

An hour after the disappearance of Lina, the third live specter visited upon our protagonist.   
Gourry saw the statue that was his friend still locked into position at the window. A saddened, vacant expression was chiseled onto the face of the chimera, and it unnerved Gourry to think that he looked neither human nor alive anymore. He placed a hand on Zelgadis' shoulder, gently, so not to break him.   
Being touched brought unbearable pain, and Zelgadis's arm moved freely from the rest of his body, shifting slightly forward to escape the swordsman's grip.   
The blonde realized that merely stepping into the room with either Zelgadis or Amelia brought pain with it. He struggled, as he had with Amelia, to grasp words to go with what he wanted to say. It was times like these when he feared his lack of intelligence; in times like these saying the wrong things hurt people. "Maybe," he suggested hesitantly, "we should talk, Zel."   
There was a long pause before Zelgadis emerged from his sorrow to the point where he could speak up, or even realize that he was being addressed. "we've never talked before," he feebly argued.   
"Sure we did!" Gourry retorted with forced cheeriness. "Remember how you were trying to teach me your Astral Vine spell?"   
"that wasn't really..." the chimera stared down at the floorboards, his eyes couldn't even make it to Gourry's boots. "how's that going anyway?"   
Gourry smiled, "Slowly, but I think I'm getting there."   
"that's good." Although the statement was sincere, it had no feeling of it whatsoever.   
Gourry was never the brightest of the traveling party. He always had more questions than answers, and he knew he did not understand the current situation between his friends. He never really noticed that Amelia had a thing for Zelgadis, but moreso, when he thought about it, he could not figure out why Zelgadis would be so against it if she did. They did not seem like a bad couple to him. "Why don't you like her, Zel?"   
The chimera's eyes had more confusion in them than the blonde's. "I... I think I might like her, I just..."   
"Really? You like her?"   
"maybe." His legs gave out and he slumped to the floor. "but i've no right to."   
"Why?"   
Just as Zelgadis began to think that he really hated that word, Gourry changed the subject.   
"You know, Zel, you're lucky."   
Zelgadis could have choked on his disbelief. "I'm WHAT?!"   
"Amelia knows all about you, even when you don't tell her anything."   
"What... do you mean?"   
Gourry looked down at his friend somewhat knowingly. "Lina and I... we... we don't understand each other too much, although.... I mean.... we still... Anyway, if Lina was a bit more like Amelia... I'm not saying I want her to be or anything, but I'm just saying things would be a lot easier. I wouldn't want that, you know? But you.. you need it, Zel. You need someone that knows what you're feeling cause you don't talk."   
Dumbfounded was the only word to describe what Zelgadis felt. It seemed impossible that such analytical words could have come out of the blonde's mouth, yet they had. What was even more surprising was that Gourry realized all of this before he had.   
"Did I say something wrong?" the swordsman questioned as he watched his friend stand up.   
Zelgadis walked over to the door. "No. You said everything right." 

Lina thought she imagined the soft tap at the door. She left her post over the lightly sobbing princess to answer it. "Gourry," she started as she jarred the door. "I think maybe its best if you just.... oh."   
The yellow glare of a candle down the hall glinted off of his silver hair. "Is she..?"   
The sorceress stepped into the hallway. "She's awake."   
Zelgadis quietly wiped his hands on his pants legs, walked into the girls' room, and shut the door behind himself. The sound of Amelia's crying cut through him, and he wanted to back out of the room. It was hard to accept what he had done, yet his legs managed to get him close to her bed.   
"miss lina..." she whimpered. "really... i'd rather be alone."   
"Really?" he asked softly.   
The princess gasped as she got out from under the covers to see the chimera. It seemed like a dream that he'd actually be in her room. "zel..gadis?"   
He sat down on the edge of her bed, careful to keep his back to her. He was glad the room was dark; it was harder to see his shaking hands. "I... just wanted to say that... 'not at all'... may have been too strong a phrase."   
Amelia wanted to jump, but her nervous hand could not even reach for his shoulder. "Really?!" she wondered.   
Each word was chosen meticulously. "Maybe.. it would have been better to say 'not yet.'"   
She smiled and she did not want to stop her tears. "Mister Zelgadis, that's..!" As she said this, she came closer to hugging him from behind.   
He sensed it, and rose swiftly. "I can't," he clarified.   
"oh.." Amelia murmured, feeling as though she had made some horrible mistake. "Well," she requested optimistically, "maybe we should talk..."   
"There isn't anything to discuss," he told her sharply, walking towards the door.   
"Just one thing!" she pleaded as he opened the door.   
He looked at her in the dark, a silhouette against the window. Her hair was mussed and her breathing was ragged, yet the vision evoked a sort of passion from him. Her persistence irked and soothed him at the same time, and he hated that he could not respond to it. Still, her quiet voice calmed the storm inside him.   
"Ze...... You meant what you said, didn't you?"   
Only the dullest moonlight reflected off of his hair was visible, yet as it shifted it told her that he had nodded in the affirmative. A sigh of relief escaped Amelia when she heard the door click shut, yet for some reason she remained crying. 

Xellos yawned from his perch in a tree outside the inn. _My my, I never thought those two would go through with it_, he thought matter-of-factly. _Still_ --he stretched-- _this is getting awfully boring._ He smiled sadistically. _When are we going to finally pay Milgesia a visit? I'm getting impatient waiting for the game to begin!_   
Even he realized that his eagerness was getting the best of him, yet a slight twinge of guilt tugged at him. These were, after all his former colleagues. He decided to merely savor the guilt as a taste of the enjoyment to come.   
  
  
  


Tsuzuku....   


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
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	8. Chapter Seven: Hindsight in Fog

**One Third Human**   
**Part Seven**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, and various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honour, okay? Enjoy. 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. Also, be sure to check out my webpage Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation for the fanart that goes with this story.   
Doujinshi Alert! Only a few more weeks until I begin posting One Third Human, the fancomic. For more information check out the fanart section of my website.   


When Amelia walked downstairs to find her friends finishing breakfast, she was distressed to see a lack of a certain chimera. She paused at the foot of the stairs, shivering. _Zelgadis is never late for... He couldn't have..._   
"He's still in bed, Amelia!" Lina yelled, sensing her fear from half a room away.   
Her body still trembled as she pulled out a chair and sat down. "Re...really?" she asked nervously.   
Lina smiled for lack of a better response. "Seems you're both rather shaken up today."   
"I can't believe you told Zel you loved him!" Gourry exclaimed through a mouthful of pancakes.   
The girls stared vacantly at the swordsman as he continued to eat before Lina decided to agree with him. "He's right, Amelia. I can't say it was your smartest move of the century."   
"But he's hurting, Miss Lina! And he won't listen to a word I..er.. any of us say!"   
Lina sighed and wagged her fork at the princess like a teacher would at a misbehaving student. "Then you should have tried to talk to him. This is... This is bad, Amelia. No matter what you'd like to think, Zel really isn't ready for a relationship."   
"He's at least twenty years old!" she objected, then paused. "At least.... I think he's twenty... he... he is older than you, right, Miss Lina?"   
The redhead shrugged. "I'd say he's older than me, but I honestly don't know for sure. He's never told me his age or anything."   
"He's definitely younger than I am," Gourry chimed in.   
Lina could not hide the pity in her eyes as she looked at her friend. "That's exactly what I'm saying, Amelia. I don't think Zel has opened up to anyone in years."   
Amelia still wanted to deny that Zelgadis could have cut himself so far off from humanity. "What about those guys he was with before you met him... you mentioned them... Rodimus and Zolf?"   
Thinking about Zelgadis' past made Lina lose her appetite out of sheer concern for her friends. She placed her fork on the table as she debated what she should say. "I... don't know for certain, Amelia, but they looked about twice Zel's age, if not older. I somehow doubt he really opened up to them."   
In a last ditch attempt, Amelia asked, "What about his parents?"   
Lina's brain tangled itself in knots. "I don't know what I should tell you... Zel never told me anything, except that he knew Rezo since before he can remember."   
"So...?"   
"Rezo didn't seem like a very family oriented guy, especially when we dealt with him. He may not have been psychotic when he first met Zelgadis, but..."   
"But..." Amelia repeated in gripping anticipation.   
"I said I don't know, but... Rezo could have kidnapped Zelgadis, or even.... even killed Zel's parents. I mean, I don't know or anything, but..."   
The princess covered her mouth with her hand, not sure if she wanted to cry or be sick. "Mister... Mister Zelgadis never talked to anyone, did he?"   
Lina solemnly shook her head. "I don't think he ever did."   
Gourry looked up from his plate, saw that things had gotten solemn to the point that they would be over his head, and returned his attention to eating. When he finally realized that Lina had not started their morning battle over the breakfast table, he knew it was too serious to ignore. "Maybe," he drolled, "you should take something up to Zelgadis. After breakfast, he won't be able to eat here until dinner."   
Amelia quietly agreed before heading back upstairs with Gourry's key, four slices of toast, and a cup of coffee. 

She had to fight her nerves to keep from dropping the glass when she heard him cry out from the other side of the door. When she entered, she found the chimera heavily asleep and even more heavily tormented by nightmares. His eyes were viced shut as if he were in horrid pain, and a moan constantly escaped his lips, be it soft or loud and agonizing. He shifted suddenly, turning his back to her, and cried out in some sort of unbearable pain, all the while sound asleep. The glass shattered on the floor when he nearly screamed something incoherent or very likely inhuman.   
Amelia stepped over the toast as she walked to the other side of the bed. By the time her slow pace carried her over to him, the moaning had stopped, but the pain was still written out on his face as he cursed, "Rezo." All the hate that usually accompanied the name when he addressed it had been leeched from his voice, only to be replaced by a fearfully passive shell of Zelgadis. It scared Amelia to see him like this, and more than anything in the world she wanted to help him right then and there. She would have given up everything to remove the terror from his demeanor. Suddenly his arm jutted out in an attempt to reach something, what she did not know. She watched his hand for a long minute, outstretched beside her off the edge of the bed as small sounds like agonizing sobs followed. Then his spread fingers recoiled as he brought his arm back in close to his face, defeat evident. His head jerked back and his throat visibly quivered as if he were about to cry.   
Her own feelings more than justice compelled her to quickly snatch his hand with her own. It was met with a strong grip, and she reeled in shock. Neither Zelgadis nor Amelia were wearing gloves, and his hand was as cold and harsh as his personality. The initial frigidity of his hand shocked her, and his grip was strong to the point that it hurt. Her fingers were cramped into an awkward placement, all between his thumb and index finger. He then shifted toward her hand, as if it offered some sort of salvation, and he pulled her fingertips to his cheek and held them there. Her thumb was somewhat free, laying over his, and his skin, which she always thought would be smooth like marble, was actually coarse, like very, very fine sandpaper. It was not coarse to the point of being displeasurable to touch, just not smooth.   
Then he started to cry. Tears did not run from his eyes, but Amelia could see the moisture building up on his eyelids as he sobbed almost silently. As she was already offering all the support she could give, there was not much else she could do except watch and pity him. She wanted to wake him up and ask him if holding her hand gave him any comfort outside of his dream, or if he would once again place everything in his cure. She began to worry when she realized that he could wake up at any moment and see her holding his hand. There was still an uncertainty between them and she did not want to force him into anything. Besides that, he could get angry about it again like the last time she tried to touch him.   
Fortunately for her, he released her hand to rub his eye, and he rolled over slightly in the other direction as he did so. About five seconds later the action became a tense stretch, and Zelgadis regained consciousness with a muffled groan. Sitting up, he buried his head in his hands, half trying to sort out his dreams and half trying to forget them. Amelia watched as he brought his hands down to rest on the blanket and stared at them; he studied them with a fearful wonder, like he thought he'd be human once he woke up. She breathed in heavily, thus interrupting his morning ritual of remembering how much he hated his body.   
His eyes widened as his gaze snapped to her direction. "Amelia!" he almost gasped, but managed to maintain some composure in his shock. "What.... Why...?"   
She tried meekly to explain, "Well, I... You see... I wanted to bring you breakfast, but..." In the end, she only pointed to the other side of the room.   
He stared at the mess of toast and coffee on the floor, each now very much a part of one another, in curiosity for a moment. He then looked at her a moment, her eyes fixed to the floor but not looking at it, her clenched fists in her lap a signal of her nervousness. He looked at the toast once more, then back to her. His eyes narrowed compassionately as he put the pieces together in his mind. "You heard... I had..."   
"You were having a nightmare, and you were.. well, you looked like you were in a lot of pain. It scared me," she informed him in the softest tone.   
More than anything, he felt guilty. "Hey, it's alright," he assured her. He leaned over to put his hand on hers, yet stopped mere inches from her skin. Amelia watched, enamored by the stone hand and the man who owned it. Her mind was begging him to place it on her own shaking hands. He backed away though, and the look of disgust at himself was evident in his sorrowful eyes. The princess knew that any feelings Zelgadis could actually have for her did not compare in the least to the venom bitter feelings that he had for his curse. In the end, she left without a word, and his eyes remained on the door, the image of her last lovelorn glance burning on his retinas. 

He tried his best to ignore her in hopes that his feelings, whatever they were, would calm down. It was not the normal rage or depression that had so become a part of his life; instead it was something else, good sometimes, but more often than not painful. The other feelings he did not like, but this was the only one that could hurt him anymore. As if that was not enough, trying to ignore her made him more aware of her presence. After all, he had to know where she was to not look at her, know when she was saying something important in case he had to respond. It got to the point that she figured out what he was doing quite easily. That made it even worse, because she would wait for his gaze to land on her back, then spin around and assault him with one of her innocently coy smiles.   
Amelia turned his need for isolation into a game.   
And she was winning.   
As they walked up the trail leading to the Katahto Mountains, Amelia lingered by his side, two steps ahead to make sure he had to look at her. Her head cocked at an angle that let him catch passing glimpses of her face; she deliberately let her left arm hang in hopes that he would latch onto her hand with his own.   
_She's tempting me!_ he suddenly realized. Jolts of founded speculation were becoming quite normal for him. It sobered him up from his emotional high. _Doesn't she see that it can't work like this? He clenched his fist. Not with me like this. But she has to push it.._   
Reading his mind became an impossible chore, and every attempt was never exactly right. She spun around, unknowingly wielding her innocent smile like a weapon. "Cheer up, Mister Zelgadis! We'll be there soon, and then we'll know where to find your cure!"   
To Zelgadis, the ease with which she said it was scarier than the fact that she believed it. It was a statement that enraged him like no other, because it seemed like she undermined his years of effort. Sure, they were all futile, but his cure was not just going to turn up because his friends were with him. "What the hell would you know?" he growled.   
Amelia uttered an inaudible sound as the colour drained from her face. She tried to armor herself up for the verbal lashing she new was to be had, but her resolve to be stronger cracked as his words bit into her.   
"Don't you get it?! I've been searching for years TO FIND MY CURE! Just because I might finally get Milgesia's help doesn't mean that I'll find a cure! I've gone through years of HELL to..." Simultaneously he realized that he was getting personal and hurting Amelia at the same time. He clenched his jaw tight and waited for the anger to pass.   
By now the princess knew better than to try to comfort him. His harsh words cut through her, yet she almost wished he had continued so that she would know what he was thinking. In that second she was all alone in the world with him, and no effort of hers could take away any of the pain or negativity surrounding him. She could not make eye contact with him when he was mad like that, and so she turned away. Amelia cried for lack of anything better to do.   
That snapped him out of his fury with blinding speed. No matter what was going on inside of him, he felt drawn to the young woman, and the more his obsession with his cure chipped away at him, the more liable he was to want to give in to the urges that lay within him. So he reached out and carefully but firmly gripped her shoulder. She heard a small sound from his open mouth behind her back, a sure sign that he wanted to say something alien to his regular vocabulary, something comforting. His fingers tensed around her shoulder too tightly to be comfortable, and after that he quickly pulled his hand away. When she finally turned around to look at him, his face was all confusion and turmoil and guilt.   
He could not make eye contact with her, and she could see the word 'sorry' wanted to form on his lips.   
Her lips curved into a soft smile and she sniffled a bit. "You don't have anything to be ashamed of, Mister Zelgadis," she affirmed as she took a step closer to him. Her hand rested on the back of his arm while she tried to look into his eyes. She knew she could utterly destroy the wall now, but the look in Zelgadis' eyes read nothing but fear. He would not be able to handle it now, and to crumble the wall would be to break him. He began to stutter syllables that could not possibly be words as he began to tremor.   
His vulnerability scared her, and something inside her screamed that she was hurting him, driving a thousand needles through stone flesh. He was stone; emotional pain was the only thing that could hurt him anymore. She released his arm as quickly as she had taken hold of it, and she turned around. "I'm sorry," she amended, noting that she was doing more damage than anything.   
Zelgadis wanted her to take back the apology; he knew it was his fault if anyone's, but it was always his fault. Even if he could not believe it, he wanted it to be someone else's error for once. No matter what she said to him, he would never believe that she wanted to be with a chimera. Anything that happened was his fault for even thinking he might want to be with her. He wanted it to be able to place the blame on Amelia instead. 

He worked hard to hold back the rage while he trudged up to the cliff. Lina had done some thorough convincing, it had seemed, as Milgesia simply stared suspiciously at the chimera instead of trying to throw him out of the valley.   
"As much as I believe your story, Lina, I would be much more inclined to help if your companion had not tried to kill me a few years ago," the humanoid dragon expounded. "He has quite a streak for bloodlust, does he not?"   
The redhead laughed nervously as she stepped between Milgesia and his view of Zelgadis. "Which is exactly why he needs a cure so badly. You see, Rezo made him part brow demon, and, well, they may not be the worst kind of demons, but they're still very violent by nature. Add that to years of pent up emotion and there's no telling what kind of psychological change Zel will go through. He really just wants to be normal again. His curse really is eating at his mind. He needs help."   
The dragon steadily walked up to confront Zelgadis. "How do I know I can trust him?" he asked anyone but the subject of the question.   
Zelgadis always had the idea in his mind that he was worthless due to his form, but he never could tolerate being treated like a thing. His fists clenched. "Why you...!"   
Amelia jumped in on the spot, holding one of his arms back. "Calm down!" she commanded with distress, stunning Zelgadis. She took the opportunity to address the man who held Zelgadis' fate in his hands. "Can't you see, Mister Milgesia? You remember how Zelgadis used to be, don't you? He was quiet and withdrawn before, yes, but he certainly wasn't violent unless provoked. His curse didn't just affect his body anymore. He's changing and he needs your help! I'll vouch for his outstanding character, he does have a lot of compassion, he's risked his life for others many times! Can't you just help? Please?" Getting emotional, she was about ready to get on her knees and beg.   
Although his face did not show it, Amelia's display hit a philanthropic chord in Milgesia. He smiled almost almost wryly at the princess when he acknowledged, "You're good at calming him." The dragon focused on the fact that Zelgadis would not make eye contact with him, and it was because the girl made him see the shame in his rash behaviour. To Milgesia, this meant there was hope for the chimera. "Alright," he conceded. "I will take Lina Inverse to check if the Claire Bible remains. I want the rest of you to remain here. If the Claire Bible is intact, and there is a cure, Miss Inverse will relay it to you." With that, he turned sharply up the path, his cape whipping the air behind him. Lina caught up with him and they were off.   
Zelgadis was about to get mad over his not being trusted, but once again Amelia's hand stilled him. He stared at her hand gripping his sleeve, then at Gourry, who was sitting on the edge of the cliff dragon-watching, and finally, he looked into Amelia's eyes, for a second. Quietly he complained, "Don't you think you're being a little too forward, Amelia?"   
It took her mind some time to realize that she still had the fabric of his sleeve bunched up in her tiny fists. "Ah... sorry." Her open hand flew from its position. "I didn't mean to.. I only wanted..."   
"Thank you."   
He said it so warmly she was in shock. "C... come again?" she pressed.   
"Thank you, Amelia, but this isn't a good time for me," he confessed. "I know you're trying to help, and I appreciate the thought, but I'm isolating myself for a reason. Besides that, I wish you all wouldn't talk about me like I'm sick. I..."   
"But you yourself said you're changing!" she reprimanded. "I don't care what you say, being a chimera is affecting you more than just physically. I KNOW you aren't a violent person, Mister Zelgadis. No one wants to be totally alone, and I won't believe that you want it either."   
"I DON'T!" he shouted, and his fist pounded into the wall of rock that they stood against. It left a mark. The chimera growled, "That's exACtly my point! I CAN'T be with anyone like this, Amelia. I don't care what's doing it, if it is this body or not, but I want my cure more than anything. ANYTHING."   
She started to get a little teary-eyed again, and the routine was wearing thin on Zelgadis. "Will you STOP crying!?"   
Amelia bit her lower lip. "but... i don't know how to help....."   
His eyes widened, and if his skin wasn't stone she could have seen a vein above his temple. "I...!" he stuttered, wanting to be hysterical. "It...! That...!" He dropped to an immediate sitting position as he finally got out, "THAT'S THE POINT!"   
Gourry could see some baby dragons near a remote grove of trees. They were as gold as his hair.   
He refused to look at her, he refused to believe she could be that blind to the obvious.   
She sat down beside him. "I'm sorry if I upset you, Mister Zelgadis, but I only did it because I ca.."   
"I don't want to be having this conversation," he snapped. "I know perfectly well how you feel, and it won't make an ounce of a difference until I'm human, so you might as well save it."   
"You want to be human again so you can be close to people again," she murmured, finally understanding the immensity of that concept.   
"You get it now, don't you?"   
Her head shook in the negative. "Not really. I don't think i can understand quite yet."   
"You're right. You probably won't ever understand. I wish you could, Princess."   
She hated when he called her that, but she let it slight. Softly, she uttered, "it upsets you when i cry."   
His depression came from true sadness, but not despair this time. "of course it does."   
They sat silently until they became impatient awaiting the final word on his cure. Soon they joined Gourry. "Look cute together," he observed. Zelgadis and Amelia gawked at him, their mouths agape. The blonde further interpreted, "Those two, the black ones, down there." He pointed, and the anti-couple sighed.   
Elven-like ears picked up the first sign of their descent down the hill. After years of failures, he learned to maintain his composure no matter how anxious he was. So it was Amelia that ran to Lina when she first saw the redhead. Gourry and Zelgadis picked themselves up and followed thereafter. Gourry gave his friend an encouraging punch on the arm. "I hope this is it."   
Zelgadis' smile was half sarcasm and half hope. _So do I._   
Lina was grinning, which made him vulnerably curious. He stopped cold and stared at her.   
Her voice was the sweetest song he had never heard, but it was real as she said, "Zel, we're going to Privius! We've found a cure!" 

Xellos folded his arms behind his head and leaned back against the cliff from his post well above them. He could not hear the words being exchanged below, but he knew the information they had procured. He was counting on it.   
  
  
  


Tsuzuku...   


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/index.html 


	9. Chapter Eight: Anticipation without Hope

**One Third Human**   
**Part Eight**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, and various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honour, okay? Enjoy. 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. I always try to write back. It helps. Also, be sure to check out my webpage Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation for the fanart that goes with this story.   
Doujinshi Alert! The first installment of the One Third Human doujinshi is now up. To check it out, visit my website, Inspiration Stemming From Sleep Deprivation.   


"We've found a cure!"   
The words reverberated in his mind. An immediate lightheadedness followed, and his body stiffened all over. He wanted to ask a million questions, but nearly every word died on the way to his throat. "wha......"   
Lina grinned. "You're gonna be cured! The Claire Bible said there's a sure fix in this town, Privius. You're going to be human again, Zel!"   
The chimera did not respond. At all.   
"Eh, Zel?" Lina sweatdropped.   
He was not blinking, nor breathing.   
Lina poked him as the others just stared.   
Zelgadis fell over, yet still did not move one muscle.   
Gourry leaned over him for a closer look, and poked him again. "You don't think he's dead, do you? Hey. Zel," he called nonchalantly.   
"Mister Zelgadis!"   
Lina sighed. "I guess he went into shock." She shrugged her shoulders, then kneeled down next to him. "Well," she mused, raising her hand, "you do what you have to. Sorry, Zel. MONO VO.."   
Zelgadis eyed the redhead skeptically. The look was enough to stop her from electrocuting him. He sat up pensively, as if he had been coherent and simply thinking the whole time. "Please don't get my hopes up," he somberly requested.   
"Zel..." Her voice was empty, and sad. 

The journey to Privius took two weeks, and he spent most of the time thinking and avoiding everyone. He was always ten steps ahead of the rest of them, more than that if he could manage without them getting worried that he might take off. He scarcely ate the entire time; anticipation was clouding his every thought, dulling his every move. Hope could kill him at this point. _The greater the anticipation, the greater the disappointment,_ he told himself.   
It was the last night of their journey, and they made camp when night fell. Zelgadis desperately wanted to leave them and go on ahead, but he reigned himself in. He knew he was allowing himself too much enthusiasm. He sat down by himself against a tree in the dark, and, of course, with this being their last night out, Amelia finally joined him after having kept distant for so long.   
She caught him with his hand on her wristlet when she approached. He immediately let go of it when she sat down next to him, placing a firm hand on his firmer arm. "Are you alright?" she asked with warm concern.   
Even the gaze from the corner of his eye seemed flustered. He was falling apart with the thought of his cure. "I... Uhm... Yes." He almost smiled nervously, but stopped himself.   
"What are you going to do when you're human?"   
He made eye contact without thinking, and she saw the stunned look on his face as he looked straight into her eyes. "I don't kn..." Suddenly he turned away from her and shook his head vigourously. "No! ...I mean... it's not. There's no guarantee that there's really a cure! I mean..." He shivered, and his face fell into his hands. "i mean...."   
Amelia grabbed his wrist, and he separated his fingers a bit so he could look at her. She smiled, subtly this time. "Doesn't the fact that we learned about this directly from the Claire Bible give it a little more credibility?"   
"No," he answered quietly, but he agreed with her while telling himself he should believe otherwise.   
"Why don't you just admit that you think so as well?" Her questions were invading all the right places, and they pierced him with a warmth that he had never felt before. They scared him, but those innocent eyes drew him closer as she pulled his hands away from his face.   
"Please don't," he softly demanded, but there was no force to his words. "I can't think about that, Amelia, I'll.... I'll fall apart if I do... I'll..."   
"I don't dream often, Zelgadis, but I had a very good one of you. You were human in it, though it was very dark and I couldn't see you clearly. I think it's an omen. I've gotten much better at predictions since we've parted. I've been training hard to be a priestess." She was kneeling in front of him while holding his wrists.   
"Really?" he wondered, ultra skeptically. She seemed so adult to him when she said it, the words were almost intoxicating, but the air changed as the tension on his wrists grew weak.   
Her hand fell away from his wrist, then wandered through air, finally finding the grainy surface of his face. Unconsciously, he grasped around her waist. Softly, she asked, "Are you afraid to smile, Mister Zelgadis?"   
He opened his mouth to respond, but no words were present. As he did so, she leaned in towards him, and he found that his hand was helping her, supporting her as she came ever closer. Her hand on his face, the soft movement of her body towards his, their lips.. He realized what was happening, welcomed it. He placed his other hand on her upper arm.   
Zelgadis inhaled sharply and drew his head back until it slammed against the tree just before their lips met. It frightened Amelia, who backed off as well. Then they were not touching at all, although her face was only twelve inches from his.   
"I'm sorry!" she gulped, finally getting her weight off her hands and springing back to a sitting position. "I didn't mean..!"   
"It's all right this time," he whispered with such a gentle tone that it shocked her silent. "It was my fault, too. I helped." One side of his lips tilted upward in the smallest remnant of a smile. "I... wanted to as well, but..."   
They were both as scared as children of the truth and the present. They needed a fantasy world to live in where there were no concerns, for at the moment they were both very alone. Amelia's eyes leaked isolation in the beginning of curious tears. He leaned forward, helping her to her feet as he stood up. She never took her eyes off him, and his thin slits for eyes seemed more gentle than the softest eyes she'd ever seen.   
"I have to wait until I'm human."   
She mumbled something incoherent in agreement as she clutched his cloak for dear life. He drew her closer for the same reason, his hands gripping her tightly and his mind focusing on controlling them. If he let himself go he would have crushed her arms due to affection. "it's alright, amelia," he comforted her softly as he took comfort in her.   
"when it's over..." she sobbed.   
"i might hang around saillune for a bit." 

Xellos sighed. "Well now, what am I going to do?" he asked himself. "Privius, huh?" He leaned back against the tree, the campfire that kept the small party warm was a dull speck in the forest from where he contemplated his moves. "Too bad we didn't know about that. I certainly wasn't expecting another location to come up." He stood up on the tree branch, gazing at the vermilion light as he considered his two choices.   
"Now, I could go over there and persuade Lina into telling Zelgadis that this opportunity is a fake..." He paused a minute, a wicked smirk growing on his lips. "...but that would be lying, and I would never want to soil my good reputation. No, no. I have to sacrifice and do it the hard way." He laughed to himself, "At least it won't be boring, now will it, Zelgadis?"   
The trickster priest disappeared into the darkness, intent on bringing a plan to its fruition. 

Privius was a shell of a town, closer to a hovel. It was located in the middle of a dead forest, next to a huge mountain. The town was grey; the trees died from suffocation. There was good reason why Zelgadis had never visited before, the town was never on a map. A small colony of the exiled moved there in attempts to find peace, but instead their homes were invaded by goblins. A war broke out, one that the townspeople barely won, but they remained at the site after the battle, as there was nowhere else to go. Most of the younger members of the community left as soon as they had grown up, and never spoke of where they came from. Now, only those too attached to their homes remained.   
At least, that was the story that the group heard as they sat at the inn, awaiting their meals. There was no great feast that usually started off the group's entrance to a town, the crops had suffered due to the soil. The dirt was more like pebbles, all eroded off the mountain over hundreds of years. Great fires during the sham of a war purged the rest of the nutrients from the soil. The group shared a meager meal of some sort of potato soup. Zelgadis gave his to Lina.   
He approached the owner of the place, an older man, obviously used to the poor ways of the town. The owner eyed the man before him suspiciously, as he was covered up from head to foot, but opted not to ask questions, since these were his only customers to pay in actual money in ages. Zelgadis leaned on a table, careful to tuck his fingers into his hand. "Could you tell me if there are any well known healers in this area?" he asked in muffled, yet polite, tones. "Particularly of the name Daubrik?"   
The old man snorted a laugh, then sat down at the table. "Daubrik is no healer. He's a religious fanatic, an outsider among outsiders," the man explained solemnly. "Years ago his father and a group of monks went up into the mountains to start a cult, something worshipping the sun. The religion never caught on, it seemed, so his father gave up, came back to the town, married, and had a son, Daubrik. The kid got nearly eaten alive by wolves, recovered, but was ugly as sin. As soon as he was old enough to strike out on his own, he went up to the mountain. We never see him; he's been up there ever since." The man shrugged, checked that his customer, who was now sitting down, was still interested, then continued nonchalantly, "Since the monks never came down, I suppose they're all either ancient or dead, which means Daubrik is alone. No one knows what he's up to, but we assume he still believes in that crazy religion of his."   
Zelgadis rested his chin on his hand, taking in the story. "Why did he go up there?"   
The man leaned forward and spoke softly, "I heard it was to heal his scars, somehow. I don't really know. By the look of you, how you're all covered up, I'd say you're thinking the same reason, and the fact that you even know of this place proves your desperate." The man slid his chair back and stood. "Now, it's none of my business, but I wouldn't recommend going up there. Most people who have gone up there either came down disappointed or never came down at all."   
Zelgadis stood as well, and laid a few silver pieces on the table. "I appreciate the warning, but you are right; I am desperate. Thank you."   
He walked back over to his friends. "Get ready for another trip. We're headed into the mountains now," he announced. The journey would not be completed alone. 

"It's a day trip!" Lina screamed as she saw the height of the mountain. "I'd rather climb the Katahto Mountains all over again!"   
Zelgadis smiled, placing one hand on his hip and the other on Lina's shoulder. "You don't have to come if you don't want to, Lina. After all, coming with me was your idea, not mine."   
"Fat chance!" Lina threatened, smacking his arm away. "I didn't come to the middle of nowhere to have you botch this one. We are going up there, getting your cure, and getting out of this town!"   
Amelia craned her neck to scope out the formidable climb. "We really don't have to do this one low key, do we, Zelgadis?"   
He looked back at her a little curiously. He had almost been looking forward to the work associated with the hike. Quite simply, he had too much anxious energy. "Uhm... well, we could ray wing it. I'm not opposed." He walked between them all, then he closed his eyes and outstretched his arms. "Ray..."   
"I don't think so, Zel," Lina interrupted the dumbfounded chimera. The sorceress, part cranky from lack of food and part sympathetic, continued, "You've been in a funk ever since we got this lead, I can't trust you to keep your concentration."   
He laughed almost silently. "You're right.... levitation."   
"Wait up, Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia called as he passed by her head. "Levitation!"   
Gourry wrapped his arms around Lina's waist.   
"Ready, Gourry?" When he nodded, she took off in pursuit.   
  
They were a bit shocked when they landed. The top of the mountain, unlike the town, was quite green. There was a lush garden, and lots of trees surrounding the area. On a slight hill, there was a large temple, and steps were carved into the incline leading up to it. "Guess that's where were headed," Gourry half stated, half asked. Lina led the way.   
As they walked up the staircase, a young man wearing a gold robe rushed down towards them. "Halt! Who dares approach this temple."   
Lina stopped walking, drew up a deep breath, and was about to start on one of her impressive introductory speeches, when the man became hysterical.   
"Women! You brought women here!?" he creeched. His words were aimed at Gourry, who he took to be the leader of the party.   
Gourry was dumbfounded, as usual. Then, in a flash, he smiled. "Hey, don't worry! If you can't tell from the look of her, Lina's really still a girl!" He patted her chest to prove a point, and a vein in her head throbbed. "Besides that," he continued on, "Amelia's even younger than she is!"   
"Gourry?" Lina growled, her clenched fist trembling.   
"Yeah, Lina?"   
The tension from the impact with her fist made her feel better as he went flying through the air. They heard branches breaking in the distance somewhere. The robed man was speechless.   
"Now," Lina began, swiping her hands together as she got off on a new foot, "what is wrong with women being up here?"   
The man, more careful this time, answered congenially, "They... They're forbidden, actually."   
"Says who?" Amelia wondered.   
The man opened his mouth to answer, but then stopped. It was a long time before he spoke. He scratched his head and smiled nervously. "Actually, I don't know if anyone did, but there has never been a woman on this mountain!"   
Lina sweatdropped. "So.. ah.. technically speaking, we're not forbidden, are we?"   
"Uhm, ah... no, I guess not!" the man laughed.   
Zelgadis was sick of the playing. "Are you Daubrik?"   
The man eyed Zelgadis, scrutinizing this cloaked, unknown figure. Finally, he nodded.   
Zelgadis caught a sharp glance from Amelia, warning him to be polite. He sighed, "I need your help."   
  
There was a large dining hall in the temple, in which they all resided to partake of a decent meal, mainly salad. There the Rezo story was told once more, ending with a petition for assistance.   
Daubrik frowned. "I don't really know if I can help..."   
"You're quite handsome," Zelgadis interrupted.   
Amelia sweatdropped, "M.. Mister Zelgadis?"   
"Flattery will get you nowhere," Daubrik chided with a smile.   
Zelgadis leaned forward on the table. "Really nice face for someone nearly eaten alive."   
Daubrik slid his chair out and crossed his arms. "We're only supposed to heal our own. You would have to join the religion to be healed."   
The chimera stood up. "I'll do anything to be human again!"   
Shrugging, Daubrik went on, "It's not easy! It's a hard life full of prayer, worship, and celibacy."   
"If you're sure you can heal me, I'll.."   
"Wait!" Amelia screeched, a little more forcefully than she wanted to. Everyone stared at her as she blushed.   
Zelgadis felt a slight pang of guilt when their eyes met, but he shrugged it off. _It's not like I could be with her now. What's the difference?_   
The frazzled princess picked herself back up. "There has to be some other way! Is there someone else we can talk to?"   
"Actually, I'm the only one here. The final founding member died three years ago."   
The princess faltered a moment, but it was not long before her resolve ignited. "What kind of religion do you have!? It's only natural that one should do whatever possible to help another! Surely your god dictates that you work to right injustices! Mister Zelgadis has had a horrible injustice done to him by an evil man, and you have it in your power to help him! How can you, as a human being, ignore a cry for help?! Justice demands recognition!"   
More than a bit stunned, Daubrik pried his eyes away from the girl standing on the table and turned to Zelgadis. "She's kind of scary, isn't she?"   
Zelgadis nearly grinned as sweat ran down the side of his forehead. "Yeah, a little."   
"She your girlfriend?"   
"Not quite..."   
A blush crept over her face again when she realized she had gone overboard again. "I just think there has to be a way to help Mister Zelgadis without him joining your religion."   
"Can you think of one?" Daubrik wondered.   
"Uhm..." she sat back down, considering it for a moment. "You're the last member of your religion, right?"   
He nodded.   
"And no one's even heard of this religion, right?"   
"Correct again."   
Amelia jumped up, flashing her royal crest. "Well, I'm the Princess of Saillune, and if I say so, I can have your religion registered in the libraries as being official!"   
"Amelia!" Lina objected.   
The princess explained away Lina's qualm. "It's alright, Miss Lina. If Mister Zelgadis will do anything for his cure, then so will I."   
As for aforementioned chimera, he was in awe of her.   
Daubrik was impressed as well. Besides that, it was a good offer when he considered that his precious religion would be forever lost when he died. After a short silence, he agreed enthusiastically, "That sounds generous. If you make sure our efforts are recorded, I will help your friend. I can even give you a copy of our records and Holy Book for your library."   
"Speaking of a holy book, I'd like to see yours so I know what you'll be doing," Zelgadis requested.   
"Oh, of course," the man said, becoming more amiable by the second. "It's in the worship hall. Just go back to the main entrance and go through the door on the left. It's the biggest room, you can't miss it!"   
The chimera then dismissed himself. 

Eight hours later, Amelia wandered into the great hall. The fading sun illuminated a large stained glass window depicting a beautiful maiden above the alter. The night sky could be seen through a stained glass window that was larger still, and took up half of the ceiling. It was a geometric design, similar to a magic circle, and the center circle was regular transparent glass. After taking it all in, the princess turned to look at the lone figure sitting on the steps of the alter. He was completely oblivious to her presence and the world around him, completely ensnared by the book in his hand.   
She approached him quietly, her mind swimming in concern. She kneeled down in front of him and softly called his name.   
He jumped two steps, dropping the book as his heart skipped a beat. "Amelia! What..."   
"I didn't mean to scare you!" she apologized with a smile.   
He looked down at the book almost desperately. He did not acknowledge Amelia again until it was safely in his hand. "What are you doing here at this hour?"   
"We were worried about you. It's getting late, and we haven't seen you all day. Lina decided that one of us should check up on you, so.."   
"I'm just reading," he assured her.   
"Well, Daubrik said we could stay the night. There're some rooms that are empty... It'd be easier to show you," she said, thumbing over her shoulder in the appropriate direction.   
Zelgadis shrugged his shoulders. "I'm really not interested." His fingers flipped through the pages of the book, trying to find where he left off.   
"You look tired, though. You've really been running yourself ragged lately," Amelia pointed out, as if he did not notice.   
He mumbled, "I'm fine," without paying her the least bit of attention.   
Her hand held her chin in thought as she stood up. "You really shouldn't be reading in here. There aren't any lights."   
"Chimera. Heightened senses. See in dark," he replied, now reading.   
"Not so bright," she grumbled to herself.   
He looked up. "You say something?" This time, when he looked at her he noticed how tense her lips were, and the lack of brightness in her eyes. "Uhm, Amelia?"   
Her eyes met with his, conveying a message of helplessness on both accounts. He could not read her emotions; she could not get him to understand what she meant. "Zelgadis..." Using his name was always her best indicator. He paid more attention to her immediately, sure that it was important. "Before, you said you'd do anything for your cure... even... I mean... I know I..." Her words digressed further into choking for a sentence. "I know... you don't... but I...."   
"Hey!" He rose, surprised and confused by the conversation they were not having. "Amelia, what... I.." He stood before her, book in one hand, the other trembling only inches from her face. "You're not crying, are you?"   
Their eyes met, and the gloss of tears became a representation of the rift between them. She sniffled, disheartened by the hand that would not touch her face, loathing the hand that so tightly clutched the book. "Mister Zelgadis... what's more important to you?"   
The chimera lowered his arm as he eyed her quizzically. "I don't understand what you're asking."   
"Your cure or........... your friends?"   
The guilt nudged its way into his mind again. He pushed it away with the usual mix of emotions. "If this is about what I said today," he growled, "I'm not interested in it."   
Amelia snapped. "Don't I mean anything to you!?"   
He still wanted to be angry. "I can't believe how selfish you are! We're talking about my cure here!"   
"Selfish!?" she yelled, her voice cracking. "How dare you accuse me of being selfish! You, who leaves for two years without even writing one letter, without even mentioning anything to me about time or intent, and then comes back expecting me to wait for him!"   
He tried to cut in. "I never expected..."   
"All you do is take! You visit when you want! You pay attention when you want! It'd kill you to notice when someone else was feeling down! We've been trying to help, and trying to cheer you up every day of this journey, and you couldn't give one damn, could you!?" She stormed off in the direction of the door, intent on leaving him with something to think about.   
He processed it much faster than she expected. He grabbed her arm. "Amelia, wait."   
She turned, still angry, tears pouring from her eyes.   
"I'm sorry. Maybe it is wrong, but if I'm not human, I can't be with you anyway," he explained. "Even if you weren't here, I'd feel better about myself if I was human, so my cure is much more important. Either way, I never want anything bad to happen to you guys, and I'm sorry if I worry all of you. I guess I do take you all for granted, but... well, I can't really do anything about that, either." He saw that he calmed her, and he started to breathe a bit easier. He looked down at the book again, this time ashamed. He slipped his finger out of it, closing it. "Uhm.." He motioned to the steps. "You want to talk?"   
She sat there wringing her hands, the air about them eerily uncomfortable. "You could put your arm around me," she suggested.   
He stared at his hand, disgusted and disheartened by the stone. "It's cold at night."   
"So?"   
"My hands are cold."   
She wanted to reassure him, but he refused to look her way. "I don't mind."   
"We almost kissed," he stated solemnly.   
"You're right. We did." Amelia would have been happy if not for the tone in his voice. When he did not respond, she asked hopefully, "Do you want to now?"   
He closed his fist and covered his mouth with it. He wanted to bite it, or tear it off, or punch something. He could not decide.   
"Do you ever cry, Zelgadis?"   
"Usually no. I've only ever cried twice since I've been a chimera." _If you count the first initial week as one time..._ "I... I wasn't taught to."   
Amelia smiled sympathetically. "Most boys aren't."   
"No. You don't understand," he corrected. "The older I got.. Rezo taught me... Do you remember when Lina summoned the Lord of Nightmares?"   
"How can I forget?"   
"She was upset over Gourry, and us. She hated Phibrizzo so much that she didn't care how she defeated him. You always fight better when you have a reason. Anger and hate are driving forces. Rezo taught me that; he banked on my being upset."   
"You mean he... he encouraged you to get mad instead of upset?" Amelia did not know what was more horrifying, what Zelgadis was telling her or how utterly detached he looked while saying it. He was suddenly in his own world, and he was starting to look like he would break something at any moment. His fist shook with the horrific energy the memories pulsed through him.   
She placed her hand on his fist. "It's unnatural to be angry all the time." Her fingers landed on the rocks at the back of his jaw. "And I know you don't want to be, either."   
His breathing was heavier. So softly he revealed, "You're the first person to be this nice to me, Amelia." He immediately wished he could take it back. Every moment they were together, he knew where it could go. It killed him to stop. He could not feel her fingers where they laid on the rocks embedded in his skin. It helped to remind him, but he wanted to be human.   
He reached out and drew her into him, burying his head in her hair, holding her close. He wished he could force himself to cry so that she knew he had those kind of feelings, but he did not have the urge to. Moreso, he wished that he could say something meaningful, but no words came. He was numb, but she was warm, and her hair smelled nice.   
Amelia grabbed the material of his shirt for lack of anywhere better to place her hands. It was not the kiss she wanted, but his cold skin was apparently warming up from her body heat, and it was good to feel him breathing on her.   
After a long moment of silence, he softly laughed into her hair. They broke away from each other, and she looked at him quizzically. He had a half smirk on his face, more amused than happy. "You know, we really have to stop doing this."   
She was sad and scared. "Why?"   
"It's all so futile," he professed to the stained glass in the ceiling. "Nice, but futile." Zelgadis glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as he rested his chin in his hand. "It can't work out, Amelia, unless I'm human."   
"But.."   
"Don't argue. Just the fact that I'm saying so means it won't. You know that."   
Reluctantly she agreed, "I know." The princess looked at the book in his hand, starting to grasp the hope and skepticism that the man holding it felt. It hurt to think about a cure. "So, did you learn anything yet?"   
It took him a moment to realize that she was referring to the book. He was glad he finally got her to give up trying to convince him of the endurance and power of positive thinking. It also made him lose faith in their relationship. _If we have a relationship. Which we don't. _He stared at the hand holding the book, hell and hope all in one glance. _I just want it to end..._

"Mister Zelgadis?"   
He jumped a bit, having forgotten his present company. "Right," the chimera began. "First off, I don't know who was nuts enough to start calling this a religious book. There's nothing in it about cults or rules or morality. It's not a religion, it's a class of ancient magic. All the spells in this book are related to the position of the sun, like a sort of shamanism. Since the power relies on an outside force, the caster does not need great magic ability, although it seems there's a lot of training involved." He flipped through the pages enthusiastically. "Almost all the spells have to do with plants, farming and the like. Lots of utilitarian spells... The only exception is this one." He showed her the page, and she saw his eyes latch onto the words on the paper as if he was possessed. "It's an amazing healing spell. It has to take place during a solar eclipse, within (or under, in the case of this room) a customized magic circle. This is the spell that can cure me. At least, I'm hoping it can."   
It was the first time she heard him verbalize his hope for this particular cure; he seemed happy when he said it, but scared, too. After a moment of thoughtlessly obsessing over the cure, he closed the book, thought about everything Amelia had said to him, and stood up. "I suppose I should try to get some sleep, huh?"   
Amelia smiled as she cast a lighting spell. "It would be a good idea. It would be awful for you to get sick after all of this." She walked a few steps ahead of him. "Uhm.. Mister Zelgadis?"   
"Hm?"   
Not breaking her pace, she asked, "When is the next solar eclipse?"   
"It'll take me a few days to figure it out, if it's anytime soon. It could be years, though there hasn't been one in a long while. At least, not that I remember..."   
"How would you know?"   
"I used to read a lot when I was younger. Anything I could get my hands on, and Rezo had quite an extensive library," he revealed.   
Amelia was about to ask him more about his past, but she thought better of it. If the night had proved anything, it was that Rezo was not his favourite conversational topic. They walked through long corridors, their only accompaniment the echoes of breathing and footsteps. Finally, they reached a hall of doors. They stood outside of her room after Zelgadis claimed the one across from it.   
The chimera knew he had to say something, if only as common courtesy. He decided it would be a good time to address something that nagged at the back of his mind. "You've become more open, Amelia, almost shockingly so."   
She smiled lackadaisically. "That's not true. I've always been open, you used to think I was insane because of it, or at least laughable."   
He mulled over her words. "Maybe it just seems more sincere now. Still, you... I guess I wasn't expecting things to be... the way they are now."   
The princess grew solemn. "Missing someone, thinking about them and not knowing how they are, if they're still alive, can do that to you. I have to live with the fact that if you feel like it, you can leave right now and I might never hear from you again." Their eyes met despite the sheer darkness engulfing the hall. "I decided that I should let you know now, because if I don't, I might never get another chance."   
The words stabbed him, but the guilt did not change his way of thinking. He could not think like her, think about living for today. He could only think about the day he would be human again. Zelgadis liked to think he could start living like her after that. There were no words to offer her. He walked to his door, turned the handle. She had already turned around when he added, "Amelia?"   
"Yes, M... er... Ze..."   
"Zelgadis," he offered.   
"Zelgadis." It made her smile to say it.   
"How.... How long would you have waited?"   
"I don't know. Five years, maybe. I'd have definitely waited until Lina told me to give up. If she had said to, I might have."   
He paused, they still did not face each other. "How long would you wait?"   
More silence. "I guess.. as long as you tell me to, if you tell me to."   
Charged silence, silence like cold, stinging the skin. "Good night, Amelia."   
"Good night, Zelgadis."   
  
  


Tsuzuku...   


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
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	10. Chapter Nine: Sleep Deprivation

**One Third Human**   
**Part Nine**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, and various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honour, okay? Enjoy. Proofreading/editing/beta-reading for this story was done by Dreamsinger. Thanks DS! 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. I always try to write back. It helps. Also, be sure to check out my webpage Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation for the fanart that goes with this story. 

There is now a One Third Human doujinshi in production. To check it out, visit my website, Inspiration Stemming From Sleep Deprivation.   
Everyone mentally thank Dreamsinger for becoming my new (and first) official beta-reader. She's helping to make sure my story is accurate, understandable, and grammatically correct. 

Note: The flowers in question are turk's-cap lilies and bloodroot.   


He heard her come in, vaguely, and chose to ignore her. The sunlight hurt his narrowly opened eyes as she pulled the curtains back. "Rise and shine, Zel!" Lina announced the start of a brand new day, or rather the middle of one. It was nearly noon.   
"Please don't wake me," Zelgadis groaned, pulling a blanket over his head.   
The redhead took a seat next to him and smiled sympathetically. "Not much sleep, huh?"   
"None at all."   
"Because of your cure or because of Amelia?"   
He lowered the blanket to eye her skeptically. Now dazed from sleep and confusion, he asked, "How do you know about Amelia?"   
Lina stared out the window. "She seemed upset today, and I know you two had to have talked last night."   
The chimera simply groaned.   
"You're not exactly scoring points in the romance department, are you Zel?"   
"I don't want to be!" he growled, covering his face with a pillow. "Leave already. And close the curtains."   
Lina rested her head on her hand as she frowned at him. "You can't keep ignoring your problems, Zel."   
"I'm fine!"   
"You're not getting any sleep."   
The chimera let out a long, stressed breath. The lack of sleep was a problem he could not ignore. He moved the pillow to the side and propped himself up on his elbows. "I'm nervous about my cure," he admitted softly.   
"Well, you'll have it in a month," she revealed.   
Zelgadis sat up completely, his eyes wide. "Really!?" His reaction suddenly disturbed him, and he calmed himself, at least externally.   
Lina gave him one of her rare, gentle but knowing smiles. "There will be an eclipse in a month. Amelia said you already know all about the process. Daubrik said he'd be more than happy to help you out."   
He smiled weakly as the butterflies flew in his stomach. He stared at his hands. "I'm going to be..."   
Jumping in while he trailed off, the sorceress declared, "Well, that's one problem down and one problem to go."   
Zelgadis sobered up immediately. "And one problem I don't want to discuss. My.. situation with Amelia is none of your concern."   
The statement degraded the bonds between the group, and irritated the redhead. "You've managed to make one the happiest people I've met depressed. You've made her cry, and you're miserable. Being as how you're both my friends, I think that makes it my business."   
"That's not very convincing," he commented, somewhat sternly. "It sounds like you ripped that speech off of Amelia."   
"Well you haven't been around, so you wouldn't know," she quipped.   
He took it as a low blow. "You all act like I've been off having fun! I've spent the past two years looking only for my cure and..."   
"I know all that, Zel!" Lina interrupted. Her eyes softened, as if she had had this discussion before a million times. She looked worn out. "Amelia knew that, too, but she waited for you. Don't you get it? She loves you, Zel, and you're... you're..." This sort of conversation was not easy for her, and Zelgadis recognized it enough to give her some patience. "I don't know if you're intentionally ignoring her or avoiding it or what, Zel, but... You have to give a little. You're tearing her apart." Lina debated using a long pause for effect, but in her mind she knew that Zelgadis was not doing anything to intentionally hurt Amelia. "You've got to let her know if you... if you're interested."   
"I have!" he argued.   
"How?"   
"I.." He started off vehemently, but gave up when he realized he had no clear evidence to offer.   
"Well?"   
He nervously offered, "I carry that bracelet of hers. She knows I do."   
"But that doesn't say anything in terms of affection," Lina shot down his remark. "Have you ever said anything to her?"   
"I..." He looked out the window that he had hated before. His hand rubbed his leg in a fidgety movement. "She can tell..."   
"All of your signals are too ambiguous. No one knows what you're thinking, Zel. Not even Amelia," Lina scolded.   
"Well it's not like it would work!" he yelled.   
Lina was in utter disbelief. "You have your cure! How hard is it to show a little kindness to her?"   
"I will when I'm human!"   
A short breath escaped her lips. She could not believe his obsession. Scarier still was that he actually believed... "It's not going to get any easier, Zel," she quietly informed him.   
"You don't know that," he snapped back.   
"If you can't tell her now, you probably still won't when you're human. If you keep putting her off, you'll lose her. Is that what you want?"   
His eyes met with Lina's, then he closed them. "I don't know yet. I'll figure it out when I'm human."   
"No one will judge you if you don't like her, Zel, but if you do, at all, you have to let her know."   
Part of him wanted advice. "How?"   
"I don't know!" He had flustered the redhead, whose cheeks suddenly matched her hair. "Why are you asking me? I'm not good at that stuff!"   
It made him give up all hope when she said that. He knew he could not contend with Gourry or Lina in the area of romance, yet they had some kind of a working relationship. Zelgadis wanted to ask about it, he wanted to know how they made it work. He wanted to know how to make one for himself. He also knew there was no way for Lina to answer if he did ask.   
She watched him sink into his own thoughts. It worried her. "Zel?"   
The chimera looked up, trying to shift gears. "You've been saying 'Zel' a hell of a lot."   
Lina grinned when she realized he was right. "In all honesty, I'm trying to be reassuring."   
He gave a sad excuse for a smile. "Thank you."   
She stood up and took a step towards the door when she looked over her shoulder at him. "Hey, Zel?"   
"Hm?"   
"Anytime you want to sort things out, I'll be more than happy to help."   
"Yeah. Thanks."   
Lina tried to give him one of her dashing smiles, but it paled with the atmosphere that the chimera created. "You could always buy her something, or give her flowers. I bet she'd like flowers."   
Zelgadis did not, or could not, respond. 

He stood in the middle of a thick patch of woods about a mile away from the cliffside temple. _Flowers,_ he thought in sarcastic incredulity. _She'd like flowers._ And so he stood, staring at a patch of reddish orange lilies with some white flowers that looked a lot like daisies. He sat down with his legs crossed, resting his chin in his palm. _Lina wants me to pick flowers for her. Great. _He was genuinely sulking, and miffed. _Why do I have to do this, anyway? Hell, I could just kiss her in another month. What's the big deal? _He found his free hand hovering over one of the tall red flowers.   
"I may as well pick a few good ones," he conceded. He examined each one without enthusiasm, limply holding his hand above each one in case he approved it. After pulling three flowers, he found one that was actually half dead. Its orange head was wilted, it's green leaves brown. It fascinated him for a moment, and he picked it. He looked at the flower more closely as he held it. _Why did I pick this one? It's dead! There's no way she'd want..._ His thoughts trailed off as he suddenly recognized how equally unpretty the hand holding it was. "There's no way she'd want this," he said dejectedly.   
"Dammit!" he cried, punching the ground. "What's wrong with me?" he dropped the flower and began to massage his forehead as he regained his composure. "I'm going to be human soon," he reassured himself, "and Amelia already said she likes me." He took a deep breath, haphazardly yanked a fistful of red and white flowers from their bed, and stode back in the direction he had come from. When he hit the edge of the forest, he paused. The uncertainty hit him again, hard, as it always had. He tried to shake it off. I've got no reason to hold back anymore, he told himself. _I'm going to be human soon, so telling her I care won't make a difference. It'll be good to let her know._ He held the flowers out at the same level as his chest, a practice gesture. "I'm going to be human soon." It was becoming his mantra.   
Confidence turned to curiousity as blood eerily began to seep between his blue fingers. He opened his hand to see a mess of red covering it. He knelt down to wipe his hand in the grass. _There wasn't anything that could cut me..._ He was slightly relieved to realize that the flowers had been leaking the crimson liquid, and not his hand. It was still unnerving to now have what resembled blood smeared across both of his hands. If anything, it brought back bad memories. After a moment he also became aware of the fact that he could not give the flowers to Amelia. Instead he sat, rubbing his hands on the grass, looking at flowers that would slowly die. 

That evening the group decided what to do over dinner.   
"One thing's for sure," Lina initiated the conversation through a mouthfull of greens, "if I don't get a decent meal soon, I'm gonna go nuts." She then grinned awkwardly and gave a sideways glance to their host. "No offense to your salad-making skill, Daubrik."   
He shot her a dark look. "None taken."   
Amelia smirked, hoping she wouldn't be killed for her explanation. "Miss Lina and Mister Gourry are used to eating a LOT more."   
"You're one to criticise," Lina verbally jabbed the princess. "It's not like you've never joined in."   
"No fair!" Amelia reprimanded her. "I was starving!"   
Daubrik sweatdropped as he turned to Zelgadis. "Is it always like this?"   
Zelgadis nodded, somewhat reminiscent, somewhat annoyed.   
Gourry continued to pick solemnly at his salad. "I think I want to hit a town, too."   
Amelia agreed, "I think it would be alright if we just stayed at an inn for a while. It may be expensive, but it's for a good cause." She smiled sweetly at Zelgadis, who half smiled and rolled his eyes.   
The expression lasted but a moment, and the chimera was back to his solemn, calculating self. He cleared his throat. "Sorry, but I'm going to have to decline this time."   
Amelia's eyebrows twisted into a knot with her shock and confusion. "What? You mean you're not coming with us?"   
Lina became concerned as well. "Zel?"   
"Why's that?" Gourry simply asked.   
He closed his eyes in his own calm way and placed his fingertips on his forehead as he leaned on the table. "Anytime I go with you, I end up sidetracked. I appreciate everything you've all done for me, but, with my cure this close, I'm not going to take any chances. I'll be staying in Privius, just to be safe," he explained.   
"That will be quite unnecessary," Daubrik imposed his comment before anyone else could get a word in edgewise. Everyone turned to him. He went on, "It wouldn't be very hospitible of me to throw you out now that I've agreed to help you. You can stay here if you choose, Zelgadis."   
The chimera stared blankly at the man; he was not used to having people be kind to him, nor having things handed to him. "I... wouldn't want to impose," he finally remarked.   
"Actually, I was hoping you'd help me out around the temple. It's a lot of work for one to attend to alone," Daubrik confessed, raising a hand to the back of his head.   
Zelgadis stared at the table. "Well, in that case..."   
"I'll stay, too!" Amelia interjected, standing up. "I'll..."   
"Amelia..." Zelgadis said her name in a quiet manner, but it had a weight to it that silenced her. "I don't think that would be the best of ideas."   
Unconsciously, she rubbed her arm. "Why... why not?"   
"I..." He had no clue what to say, and that made him realize his answer. "I have a lot to think about." 

That night, before he slept, Zelgadis expected Amelia to walk into his room. He almost wanted her to. So he sat up in bed reading more of the holy book, more out of boredom than for actual information, while a warm, disturbing sensation nagged the back of his mind. Another feeling, a very familiar one, nestled itself in his bed with him as he put out the candle beside him, although he could not figure out why. Disappointment.   
It irked him to the point that he debated going to see her. Maybe just open up her door a crack and see if she was asleep. He was feeling a little guilty over the past few days; maybe he was expecting too much from her. _All take, no give, she had said... _He walked through the dark to his door, but his usual sensibility got the better of him as he turned the handle. It was silly to try to handle things he did not understand yet. _After tomorrow, I'll have a whole month to sort things out. Then I'll get back to her. _He went to bed with a relatively clear conscience, and, for the first time in weeks, fell immediately to sleep. 

It was a long night for Amelia. It started off with her simply staring out the open window to watch the sky turn dark. The world melted away as she leaned against the window sill, enjoying the fresh breeze that caressed her, made her hair dance in black waves. But silence always leads to thought, and so she began to dwell once again on Zelgadis. She wanted to ask him a million questions, which was nothing new; she had wanted to ask him a million questions since the day she found out that he was the great grandson of Rezo the Red Priest, but the questions now were no longer out of mere curiousity. She needed to know what he was thinking. _For a while, things seemed like they were going really well, but then..._ Her mind replayed the night before, the two of them standing in the dark hallway. She was at least hoping he would tell her to wait, but instead he only said 'Good night, Amelia.' _It wasn't the most pleasant sounding 'good night,' either._   
She left her post at the window to walk to her door. _I have to know what he... _Then his latest move stabbed its way into her mind. _He doesn't want me to stay here to wait with him... _She cursed herself. _Everything was going so well until last night. _She blamed herself for pushing him as she realized that her telling him she would wait for him was an invitation, an invitation she knew he was not ready to accept. _Miss Lina was right. He needs his space to sort things out._ Then she thought she should apologize to him. It took all of her strength to pry her hand off the doorknob.   
As she lay alone in the dark, she kept hoping for the impossibility of a knock on her door from a certain stone hand. Every second she did not hear it seemed like an eternity. By no means was Amelia desperate. She was scared, afraid that Zelgadis would use his month in isolation to convince himself that he had no feelings for her; she knew that it was in his power to do so. Afterall, he had convinced himself that he did not need his friends two years ago, and the change in him was dire. He still seemed like he did not trust them sometimes. Zelgadis had a mind and an upbringing that encouraged him to break bonds, despite what he actually wanted or his feelings.   
_Still, maybe it's something he needs,_ she concluded. _Maybe this is a test, to see if things really will work out between us... _As she lay on her side, she gripped her pillow a little tighter. _He said he doesn't feel anything for me yet. What if he really doesn't feel anything for me? What if he becomes human and he just leaves? What if he doesn't realize he doesn't have feelings for me?_ The last thought made her shudder. Part of her believed that Zelgadis thought love would magically appear in his life once he became human without actually knowing what it was. It gave a sense of urgency to her desire to know where he stood with her while he was still a chimera. Deep down, she also knew her faults, and that one of her greatest strengths that placed her above other women was that she accepted Zelgadis as he was, no matter what he was. If he was human, and she did want him to be human, he might not consider that anymore. She would be less special, and more like every other girl he could have.   
Her feelings overtook her resolve, and she found herself walking towards his door through a wall of doubt thick enough to be an ocean. She stood outside his door, hoping that any minute he would open it. She considered it helping him; if he decided he wanted to see her, she would meet him halfway, therefore taking away the anxious feeling of having to approach her door.   
When he did not come, she felt the tears welling up again, however, she decided she had been crying far too often. The princess began to see how naive she was being, it was almost as if she had thought she could let Zelgadis know she was there through the door. Her shoulders sank, and she hunched forward a bit, rubbing one of her eyes. _It certainly wouldn't be wrong to cry, _she told herself._ It's fine so long as it's not in front of Zelgadis, he's the only one who said I do it too often. Besides, I can't help how I feel. _She turned to go back to her room when she heard a door open. She turned, thrilled, to the sound.   
Gourry stepped out of his room. "Amelia?" he called in one of his softer tones.   
"Mister Gourry?" Her surprise overpowered her disappointment.   
"I thought you were out here," he whispered. "Is everything all right? You've been out here a while, haven't you?" She looked down, and the thought suddenly flashed in his head of whose door she was outside. "Do you want to talk to him?"   
Amelia closed her eyes as tight as she could as she shook her head and squeaked out a "no."   
He knew something was wrong. The swordsman knew he was not all that quick, but he knew if he felt something, it was usually dead on. He placed a large hand on her petite shoulder. "You want I should talk to him?"   
"Mister Gourry!" she cried in as soft a voice as possible. It wasn't too hard, considering the lump in her throat. The young woman threw herself into her friend's chest, and he did his best to comfort her as she cried.   
When Amelia finally calmed down, she took a step away from him. "I... I'm really sorry, Mister Gourry. I just..."   
He smiled warmly, knowingly. "It's all right, Amelia. I'm sure he'll come around."   
The princess was truly dumbstruck to hear him say such a thing. Her eyes went wide. "M... Mister Gourry... how..."   
"Now get to bed. Lina'll murder us if we don't hit a town in time for lunch!" He grinned nervously at the thought of the bandit-killer turning on them. It was almost as scary as the dawn of a dread-instilling thought: if he didn't do anything for his friends now, no one would. 

Zelgadis finally deemed himself back to normal as he got dressed that morning. He was feeling better than he ever had during the past two years. As he walked down the long hallway toward the dining area, his mind settled on the encouraging thought that he would be human soon (with none of the other more complicated details associated with the event plaguing it). It seemed like it would actually be a good day. This feeling was slaughtered as he saw Gourry leaning against the wall of the corridor. There were three reasons for this. One, there was no reason to be relaxing in the middle of a hallway. Second, Gourry obviously would have heard him leave his room, yet he pretended not to see him even though he was walking towards him. Finally, and most unsettling, was the fact that Gourry was waiting for him in the hallway when they both knew that breakfast was ready in the dining hall.   
The chimera did not particularly want any burdens today, yet he wanted to see what was up. Indecisiveness made him stand still. "Uhm..."   
"Hey, Zel!" Gourry forced in false surprise. "Big day today, huh?"   
Zelgadis analysed the statement a thousand times in a second. "What do you mean?"   
"Well, we're all leaving today," he explained a little too loudly, "and I was wondering..."   
Red lights and stop signs and fireworks exploded all over Zel's mind's eye. Gourry wondering meant Gourry was thinking. That was cause for the world to end, and Zelgadis immediately knew he was in for something bad. He braced himself.   
"..about how you're gonna say good bye to Amelia. Should be something else, huh?"   
Zelgadis' entire body went limp, although he somehow remained standing. He had entirely forgotten that he would have to say good bye to the princess. "C... come again?" he stammered.   
Gourry knew this was bad. He placed a hand behind his head as he forced a grin. "You know, you'll have to say good bye to her."   
The chimera was officially worried. "B.. but she'll be with you guys. That is, she'll be in a group."   
"You're gonna talk to her alone, right?"   
He brought a hand up to his face over his solely visible wide eye. Swallowing hard, he thought out loud, "I... I guess that would be... about right...." With a clean slate expression, he desperately asked, "What should I say?"   
Gourry looked at his unraveled friend vacantly. "Say what?"   
It seemed like a great cosmic joke that the blonde would shift back to dimness just as the chimera needed him. "Say when I'm alone with her, Gourry!" he reminded him as he fell apart. His mind told him he had to pull himself together, but the situation made him ignore it. _Any chance I have with Amelia could be resting on this!_ Suddenly the stress faded away to a chill. _Why am I worried about..._ Quietly, and without any idea if Gourry was already answering him or not, he murmured, "She'll just wait, won't she?"   
The swordsman looked worried for a moment. He had no clue what to say; he could not even figure out whether it was over his head or too deep to respond to. Instead, he just smiled and answered,"If you think so, Zel, then I'd say so."   
Zelgadis' back hit the wall, and he slowly slid down it until he was sitting on the floor.   
"Did I..!" Gourry began.   
"No, Gourry. You didn't do anything wrong," Zelgadis assured him numbly.   
The swordsman felt like he had broken him. "Uhm... I know you're gonna do the right thing, Zelgadis," was all he could think to say before leaving, and he knew he had to leave. 

There was tension as the four stood outside, mainly due to the fact that "the four" were Lina, Gourry, Amelia, and Daubrik. Zelgadis had not showed for breakfast, and no one could find him throughout the entire temple. Amelia was wringing her hands. Gourry watched a butterfly hover over the grass.   
Lina nervously debated if she should just declare it time to leave. Her compassion forced her to do otherwise. "Ya know, Amelia, he's just not one for good byes. He never was."   
Amelia played with her armband, noting in her mind that the other one was no longer in her possession. "I know, Miss Lina, but..."   
A deep voice quietly projected itself from behind her. "Sometimes you have to force yourself to do things you don't like."   
Her first impulse as she turned was to yell his name with all the joyful enthusiasm she could muster. The slightly sad look on his face made her hold it back.   
"I don't know what to say," he admitted.   
Everyone except for Zelgadis smiled.   
Amelia jumped a bit from the warm chill of supressed elation. "Uhm.." She blushed. "..That's alright, Mister Zelgadis..."   
A long silence followed, only to be broken by more silence as Zelgadis peered over Amelia's shoulder. His eye was drawn by the sensation of movement, and, sure enough, Lina was waving her arm to get his attention. She was trying to offer him help. Tell her you'll miss her, she mouthed.   
The chimera, stiff as a statue, raised one would-be eyebrow as warmth rushed to his face. I don't know if i can, he mouthed back, while Amelia stared intently at her hands. Zelgadis just hoped Lina would come up with something better. He could have cut through the anxiety around himself and Amelia with a chainsaw.   
At least say you like her, was his answer.   
I can't say that! he replied, his eyes widening.   
"Mister Zelgadis, what are you doing?" Amelia asked, finally catching him as he spoke without sound.   
"N.. Nothing!" he fired off with a forced, lopsided grin. His arms unconsciously came up into an 'I'm innocent, officer' pose.   
Amelia shot around to face her friends. "Miss Lina! What are you...!"   
"It was Gourry!" the redhead quickly retaliated.   
"Mister Gourry!"   
"What?" he wondered, clueless as usual.   
Amelia stopped herself; she knew Gourry, no matter how kindhearted he was, would never think things through enough to help the chimera. The princess returned her glare to the sorceress.   
In a last ditch effort to defend herself, Lina offered, "Well, it's not like he'd think to say he liked you himself!"   
Zelgadis felt like passing out, and for once took comfort in his natural reaction to get angry instead. "Lina! I never...!"   
Amelia did a quick one-eighty. "Really? Did you say that to Miss Lina?" she grilled him while hope filled her blue starry eyes.   
"I..."_ 'm stuck._ His surprised expression hid his desire to want to crawl under a rock. Thanks for the help, Lina. He looked at his friend, a weak smile adorned her face. "Ameli.ah..." he sighed, but cut himself short as he realized there were three more people than there should be hanging on his every word. He sighed again as he wrapped his hand around Amelia's wrist and led them a good distance away from the onlookers.   
Guilt was creeping up on Amelia again. She knew she had put too much pressure on him, but she honestly thought that if he wanted to tell anyone about his feelings, it would be Lina. She tried to bite her thumbnail, only to remember that she had started wearing gloves. "You don't have to..."   
He cut her off. "Amelia, I really don't know how I feel about you. I'd like to give you a definite answer," he confessed, "but I can't. I'm not used to any of this and I need more time, which is why I want... no.. need to be alone for a while." He looked at her softly, with a certain shyness that unnerved Amelia. He did not seem to be embarassed of the fact that he was blushing, either. "I really want to figure this out."   
Amelia found herself speechless for once as she lost herself in surprisingly deep pools of teal. His eyes no longer seemed quite so demonic.   
Even over the thirty or so yards that separated them, Lina could see things were going well. Gourry stopped breathing so heavily as he saw Lina smile. Things got even better when Lina started to be Lina again. "Way to go, Zel!" she cheered.   
The would be couple smiled.   
Lina went on. "Now let's see some action! Kiss her!"   
If Zel was not already stone, he would have turned to it. Amelia blushed furiously, wanting him to do it, but knowing it was going too far. In her expedient cover up tone of voice, she shot off a rapid, "Well I guess we've got to get going It was really great to talk like this I hope you get everything figured out We'll be back in time to make sure everything's set for your cure I'll miss you." When she ended, she ran off smiling to join the others as they set out. Amelia continued to wave as Lina snickered all the way to the edge of the cliff, where they levitated down without incident.   
Zelgadis was still a statue when a wooden pole was leaned against him.   
"You still alive?" Daubrik asked the blue sculpture (its face carefully shaded violet.)   
Zelgadis blinked, turning his head an inch to face the man. "Huh?" He inspected the pole, which was actually a metal rake.   
Daubrik gave him a wry smile. "C'mon, you said you were gonna work."   
"Work?" Zelgadis stared blankly at the man. "This isn't work," he proclaimed, lifting up the rake to offer it as proof. "This is a vacation."   
  


Tsuzuku... 

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/index.html 


	11. Chapter Ten: Downtime

**One Third Human**   
**Part Ten**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, and various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honour, okay? Enjoy.   
Proofreading/editing/beta-reading for this story was done by Dreamsinger. Thanks DS! 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. I always try to write back. It helps. Also, be sure to check out my webpage Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation for the fanart that goes with this story. 

The One Third Human doujinshi is available on my website, Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation.   
I also now have a 'guest' fanart gallery for 1/3. Check it out.   


As Zelgadis looked over the placid water, only one thought filled his mind. _It's quiet._ Silence, in its truest, most peaceful form surrounded him while he lowered his body into the water. The chimera leaned against the rocks that formed a makeshift wall and craned his neck back until his head rested on the surface of the stone, equally as hard as the head that rested on it. Even watching the dull moon in the still-light sky did not calm his unease. He had been traveling alone for two years, yet not two months had been spent with his friends and already silence seemed alien to him again. It seemed like ages since he had taken a bath without Gourry there talking to him (or just to himself). The air seemed stale without the sound of Lina and Amelia's small talk and loud antics to liven it up.   
He allowed himself to smile as he watched twilight begin its work. "No doubts anymore," he confessed to the sky. "I'm attached." The chimera often felt he led a dual life, one of complete, bitter solitude, and one of appreciative companionship with his friends. He felt different when he was with them. _Sure, I've always had my doubts of their acceptance of me, but they've never been anything but supportive._ Zelgadis had never thought this way before, never so clearly. He was beginning to like the change in himself; it seemed natural to open up, and he knew exactly why.   
He let out a long breath. "I'm going to be human again." The words sounded better every time he said them. The air suddenly seemed cooler, more refreshing. Everything did, in fact. His own smile was disconcerting, but he was beginning to enjoy the discomfort. It was starting to feel normal, and he would be normal soon. He leaned forward, and for the first time in years he did not notice his reflection in the water that surrounded him. He finally chose not to.   
"I wonder what Amelia will think when she sees me..." His thoughts trailed off for a second. "I really am changing, aren't I?" he asked no one in particular. He started to rub some of the dirt off his hands. His mind went over the little details in his life that would have to change. He would sweat more often. His hair would get greasy again. Bathing would once again become a necessity instead of a luxury. Zelgadis sighed. _I'll love every minute of it._ He looked at his hands, and instead of seeing the blue stone he loathed so much, he pictured flesh, pale, alive with sensation. He remembered how good water used to feel against his skin, and his thoughts drifted to Amelia once again.   
He did not think too much about their relationship, per se. Zelgadis just thought of her, giving his mind a break from their tangled situation. 

Unlike the town below the cliff, everything surrounding the temple was lush and green, partly due to years of magical treating, and partially because it had not been included in the fighting with the goblins. Zelgadis was surprised to learn that the magic was not apt to wear off despite the absence of the original casters, and that Daubrik himself was now the sole person to provide magical and physical maintenance to the surrounding area. Consequently, there was a lot of ground to cover, especially in the area of agriculture.   
The chimera did not show his resentment at being made to do the harder jobs as he drove a shovel into the ground. Not that he minded the work, but in the back of his mind lurked the resentment that he was only being asked to do the hard labour because he was inhuman, despite being 'inhumanly strong.' Daubrik, now dressed in less cumbersome, cooler clothing, was following him up by planting potatoes in the holes Zelgadis was digging.   
After a while in silence, Daubrik wiped some sweat off his brow and looked at his help. "Aren't you hot?"   
Zelgadis was not unaware that the sun was beating down on them; the heat was more than unusual for such a high elevation. More magic, he knew, and he was quite uncomfortable. "It doesn't matter. I don't sweat, anyway," he dismissed the concern.   
"Still," Daubrik pressed as he looked over the chimera, "Wouldn't you be more comfortable without so many layers? I mean, the cloak and the long sleeved shirt."   
Inwardly, the chimera agreed. For once, he decided not to be reserved about expressing his thoughts. "'Comfort' is relative," was all he said.   
"You don't want me to stare," the priest deduced. "I'll try not to, and even if I do, I'll get used to it after a while."   
"Still.." Zelgadis protested.   
"I've been in your position," he reminded the chimera.   
That shut Zelgadis up. He was not used to hearing that. With more reserve than was normal for a man, Zelgadis unhooked his clasp, then removed his cloak, followed by his shirt, tossing them onto a nearby patch of grass. The air seemed cooler after that. It was always a refreshing sensation to have air on his skin. Even though it did not feel nearly as nice as when he was human, it was still a major change simply because he spent so much time covered up. Although Daubrik did not stare at him, he still felt the numbing urge to put his shirt back on, to hide his grotesque body. Unconsciously, his shoulders fell forward as his body wanted to collapse in on itself.   
Sympathetically, Daubrik left to attend to other chores.   
Zelgadis allowed himself to fall to his knees when the other man was out of sight. Equally ashamed of his body and his reaction, Zelgadis cursed his grandfather for damning him to a life of reservation. The shame was nothing new, it was with him whenever he walked into a town, fearing that someone would take too much notice of what was always visible on him, his eyes, his hair, his fingers. The more skin Zelgadis exposed, the worse it felt, especially when his friends were not around. The memories of wanting to tear his skin off the first time he had to take a bath with Gourry conjured themselves up. It was the most dreadful feeling back then, having someone see his disfigured form naked. Then the shame dissipated as he thought back on it. Zelgadis laughed to himself with grateful amusement. _Gourry never did think twice about my appearance, did he?_ The swordsman had never once stared at him after they had established themselves as allies. _Maybe it's because he's too dumb..._ Zelgadis considered the thought for a moment, then dismissed it. He knew what it was; Gourry was just that innocent. Zelgadis smiled as he stood back up. He really was starting to miss them. 

Zelgadis lay in bed awake that night, still shirtless. The sensation of air on his stone skin was still disconcerting, a fact that troubled him. After all, the air felt good, cool, and it should have been a pleasurable sensation after having had to cover up all the time. But it was not. No matter how many times he told himself to relax, he still felt tense, like he wanted to grab something to cover up his skin. He never felt such a way when bathing, but that was different, that had its purpose. He sat up, covering his face with a stone hand, finally understanding. "This is what it'll be like to be human, isn't it?" In his mind, he was asking Amelia or Lina. "It's just like they said all along," he realized. The idea of cold air, air that he could feel, on his human skin, made him shiver, but not from the pleasure of it. He knew he would still feel the same, knew it would make him want to fold in on himself. _The same way..._   
"Amelia." The chimera looked up, lost for a second. His ears held the echo of his heart beating in his throat; it would not get any easier. _It could take me years to get used to her_, he admitted in defeat. _But I want to. I want to get used to having her around._ Zelgadis wanted to think of how much easier his life would be if he had never been a chimera, but it did not seem all that great without his friends, no matter how many more there were to replace them. 

Amelia tripped over her own feet as she walked across the field behind the temple. "Daubrik said he was out here," she told herself quietly. She paused, waiting to hear Zelgadis' voice in the distance, assuming he heard her. Thankfully, all she heard was the dull din of chirping crickets. For as much as she wanted to see the chimera, she was afraid of the moment when she would. "I hope he isn't mad about my coming back early. It's been two weeks. That should be enough time to himself, right?" she wondered aloud, trying to justify herself. Lina had told her to stay away longer, but the princess kept hoping that maybe Zelgadis would want an extra week for them to be alone together before he was cured. At least, that was what Amelia wanted.   
She was softly padding over the dirt when she suddenly fell with a scream.   
Eight feet down.   
And into the arms of a very confused and shocked chimera. A shovel clattered to the ground. "Amelia!? What are you doing here?"   
She opened her eyes to find herself in a very narrow pit, being held by a dirt-covered chimera. "Mister Zelgadis? What?"   
He placed her on her feet as he explained, "I'm being exploited, more or less. Daubrik wanted a well put in, and, since I'm stronger than him, he asked me to do it."   
"Oh," the princess started absently, "So, why not just use a spell?"   
Leaning against the wall of the giant hole, Zelgadis replied, "I don't mind the work." _It keeps my mind occupied._ "What are you doing back so soon?"   
A blush crept over her face. "I.. I uh..." Her words broke off as she examined the chimera. Something seemed amiss.   
"What is it?"   
She pointed at him. "You're not wearing a shirt."   
He looked down, having forgotten, pleased that he had. As he met her surprised gaze, his expression turned to one of weary somberness. "Yeah. I'm trying to get used to it." His eyes then latched onto the ward on her neck. "I've decided there's a lot I have to get used to."   
The feeling that she had interrupted something important overtook her. "I.. I'm sorry I came back early. I just thought... That is I..."   
As he interrupted, he forced a smile. Not because he did not want to smile, but because the action was still so alien to him. "It's all right," he assured her.   
His words calmed her, dismissed her fear. With renewed bravery, she announced, "I just wanted to see you."   
His mantra echoing in the back of his mind, he summoned up enough of a voice to say, "I.. wanted to see you.. as well." The forced smile had faded despite his best efforts, and it allowed Amelia to see that he was serious.   
Placing her arms behind her back, she stood up straight and flashed him one of her genuine smiles. "I'm glad, Mister Zelgadis," she said, closing her eyes and tilting her head to one side.   
It made him smile. 

The next time he saw her, it was late afternoon. The sun was getting low in the sky, starting to add a pink hue to the lowest clouds in the blue sky. He was walking back towards the temple when Amelia came out towards him, holding clothes and towels between her slender arms. He stopped, staring blankly at her as she approached.   
"Daubrik said you usually take a bath before you eat, so I figured I'd bring your stuff out," she explained, offering him the bundle.   
As he reached out to take it, Amelia withdrew. Only then did his mind defog itself enough to realize just how much dirt was caked onto his hands. He absently wiped them on his equally dirty pants while her kindness continued to disconcert him. "I usually... That is I..."   
Breaking a chain of stuttering, she added, "And I was hoping you'd show me where the lake is. I wouldn't mind freshening up myself."   
He just kind of stopped and stared at her, not sure of what to say or do. Another not so nice reminder of his inexperience. The downer brought him back to his usual self. "It's this way," he dully stated, tilting his head in the direction before turning to lead the way.   
The princess followed him in silence, staring at his familiar clothes in her arms. She was torn between words and the lack thereof. She wanted to say something to him, but all the while she was picking up a vibration of vulnerability from him. Amelia liked to think he was projecting it, trying to let her know how he was feeling even though he would not so much as look at her, yet she knew him well enough to realize that he thought he could just hide it. The chimera never seemed to like feeling the least bit vulnerable. That twinge of uncertainty was his only weakness. _Maybe that's why he's so obsessed with power._   
The opportunity to speak presented itself when they walked past an impressive patch of tall, crimson flowers. Amelia happily dropped to her knees before them. "Look at these flowers, Mister Zelgadis," she chirped in delight.   
He simply turned around to stare at her in curiosity.   
"I've never seen flowers like this before," the princess informed him as she plucked one from the ground. She held it close for examination, inhaling its soft scent, noting the bright colour, like a starfish on a rod of green.   
He was jealous of the smile the flowers brought to her face. His thoughts were interrupted as she leaned over to pick one of the small white flowers that accompanied the more dominant red ones. "Amelia!" he called, a bit too frantically for the situation.   
She looked up, alarmed, her arm hanging in dead space.   
Zelgadis blushed. "Uhm. Those flowers, they 'bleed.' A reddish fluid will start running if you pick it."   
"oh," she mouthed quietly, with a touch of disappointment. She stood up with her new crimson flower, and forced a smile. "Gee, Mister Zelgadis, I didn't think you'd know about flowers, too."   
His face got a more vibrant shade of violet, and all he could force out was an "Uhm... yeah." 

If Zelgadis heard her sigh, he did not acknowledge it. _He had to hear that_, Amelia thought to herself after he ignored her small attempt to draw him out. _There's no way he couldn't hear it. There is no sound!_ She rolled her eyes. _He'd make a great mime._ She sighed once again, this time genuinely._ I wish I could understand what's going on inside your head, Mister Zelgadis. I know you're nervous, and I know why you think you should be, but I wish I could understand it._ Amelia felt herself melt a little as the silence furthered the rift between them.   
_Sure, he's made of stone, but he's not bad looking._ She found herself analyzing how he looked earlier in the day, when he was actually facing her. The picture of him shirtless was somehow frozen in her mind, even though he was still walking in front of her in the same state. _He looks so different with all of his clothes on._ She looked down at the turtleneck and cape in her hands. _All his clothes are made of such heavy material. They really build him up._ She noted how thin he was, how much narrower his shoulders seemed without triple layers of fabric covering them. _He actually looks a lot broader from the back._ He almost looked like a puzzle that did not quite fit together, with decent shoulders, but with thinner arms and a slender torso that did not belong together. It didn't seem quite right, but it made for a very unique composition. She could not take her eyes off his back as he moved, watching his skin move with his muscles, hard stone angles changing with such fluid motion. _He looks.. interesting._ She embraced the warm feeling that spread across her cheeks. _He's always looked interesting._   
Then she realized what it was, and why he looked so much broader from the the back. _He's slouching. _And indeed, ever so slightly, his shoulders were pulled forward, making his chest concave. The sight bothered her. _He never slouches. But he's been doing it all day, hasn't he? _She tightened her grip on his clothing, hugging it, smelling the soft scent of the dust of ages that he carried with him everywhere. She wondered what he had been thinking about while she was away, and if he had really lessened his burden in their absense. If his body was telling her anything, it was that he was carrying more weight on his stone shoulders.   
After a small eternity of walking, they arrived at a lake surrounded by rocks and some shrubbery. As if realizing for the first time that they would be bathing in the same area together, they stared blankly at each other. Clamping a fang down on a stone fingernail, Zelgadis asked, "So now what?"   
Amelia's face turned red as she looked for an answer. "Oh, over there!" she hurriedly pointed out a place where the forest had overtaken the edge of the water. "Some of those branches are hanging into the lake. If we go over there, we can each have a side."   
"Sounds plausible," the chimera commented with a shrug, then headed towards the divider.   
Amelia made sure her companion was safely on his side of the divider before relaxing. As the princess let the bundle of towels and clothes fall to the grass, she wondered aloud, "How come I ended up carrying all of this anyway?"   
His voice carried well despite the foliage separating them. "I wasn't expecting you to come with me, and since I didn't have to go back to the temple for my clothes, I forgot to go back in and wash the dirt off my hands." The answer surprised her, mainly because she thought she had spoken inaudibly; she had forgotten how strong his sense of hearing was.   
It made her hesitate to undress._ That's silly, Amelia_, she scolded herself._ It doesn't matter if he can hear you while you're naked. It's his ears that are sensitive, not his eyes._ Still, her hands refused to unhook her cape. Almost unconsciously, she began to stare into the thick wall of hanging branches, inspecting their effectiveness as a curtain. It seemed perfect. Still nervous, she inquired through the veil of green, "You can't see me, can you, Mister Zelgadis?"   
The chimera was taken aback by the question, having been innocently relaxing in the water. "I hadn't tried to look," he answered, calmly enough.   
"Well, you couldn't see me if you tried, right?" she questioned. "I mean, you can't see through walls or anything, can you?" Red creeped up into her cheeks, and the princess was instantly mortified.   
Although quietly, he laughed aloud. "You really don't have to be that nervous, Amelia."   
"I.. I'm sorry!" she stammered. "It was a silly question. I really wasn't thinking! I..."   
"It's alright, Amelia," he reassured her. "I can't see through solid objects. More importantly, I've got too much pride to try to see you naked, so relax."   
"R..Right!" she agreed, feeling pathetic as she slid her clothes off and slipped into the water.   
The stillness of her surroundings opened her mind to some more complex thoughts as she lathered up a washcloth with a bit of soap. A gentle breeze ruffled her bangs and the leaves alike, and made her shiver despite the water's warmth. The peacefulness was very nice, but it made her feel very alone. Very quietly, she asked "Can you hear me, Mister Zelgadis?"   
In contrast to her volume, he was obviously projecting his voice so she could hear. "I can when you talk, if that's what you mean. I really can't otherwise."   
"I just meant talking," she clarified.   
"Then, yes, I can hear you."   
Amelia was feeling rather proud of herself for having closed the communication gap. That is, until the dead silence walled itself between them again. The princess sweatdropped. Then she got self conscious. _Maybe he doesn't want to talk to me..._ She shook her head vigourously, trying to erase the thought. _That can't be it, I didn't do anything wrong. But why doesn't he ever say anything?_ Finally, the thought dawned on her to just ask. "Mister Zelgadis?" she called softly.   
The first syllable out of his mouth was a curious "hm?" It was immediately replaced by "What is it, Amelia?" when he realized she probably could not hear him.   
She paused, considering whether she should ask or not. _It is, after all, a very personal question. But if he and I are..._ She settled down into the water until it just touched her chin. She wanted to hide away. Looking at her wavy reflection, she wondered just what he saw when he looked at her.   
"Amelia?" his voice was subdued. It almost had a caring tone to it.   
_Maybe I'm the one projecting... _She cleared her throat. "You don't like to talk, do you, Mister Zelgadis?"   
His eyes widened a moment as he stared at nothing before focusing on his reflection in the water. He tried to imagine his human form staring back at him, as he had done hundreds of times in the past weeks. But he could not. Not while Amelia was talking to him, and he was sure that he could not in the presence of Gourry and Lina. He only saw the blue stone he detested, sharp, silver hair, and thin demonic eyes. Without even making a conscious decision to, he slammed his hand into the water to disrupt the unwelcome image.   
"Mister Zelgadis?"   
The chimera closed his eyes tightly, and exhaled a few tight breaths, trying to rid himself of the self hate. His mantra died before he could repeat it; it could not stand up to the evidence before his eyes. It was a burning pain in his chest. That was the best he could describe it to himself as he covered his face with his hands and let the weeks of self reassurance just die.   
The silence had become tense, like it was trying to strangle her. Amelia shivered and wished she could see beyond the barrier. It was not like Zelgadis to delay an answer. "I... I'm sorry, Mister Zelgadis. I just..." The words fell short. She did not know what to say. He had been feeling vulnerable, and she made it worse. An apology was not what he needed.   
Amelia tried her best to sit up straight. With precise and careful articulation, she told him "You can tell me anything, Zelgadis. I really don't mind, and I really won't judge you on it. I only asked because I want to help."   
He could not even lift his head from his hands. "I just want to be human, Amelia. As soon as possible. I just want this cure to work." The words were sticking in his throat, and when they ended, he had a hard time inhaling. He had to force his concentration to make sure breathing did not turn to sobbing.   
When a hand touched his bare shoulder, he nearly jumped out of his stone skin, but managed to keep himself submerged. He whipped around like a flash to see a sopping wet Amelia, fully clothed and completely unnerved with her hand occupying the space he had been in. Despite the pounding of her heart, she found herself reading his face as he calmed. His lone wide eye showed confusion, but underneath that, sadness. Not that it was not always there; she had never seen him without a hint of it there, even when smiling. Her comforting voice became detached from shock. "I.. was going to say... I know that this cure will work.... I can feel it... zelgadis."   
Zelgadis could not help but stare blankly at the drenched embodiment of optimism that stood before him. He was amazed at how things always seemed true when she said them, no matter how impossible they seemed. _Coming over here was a rather nice gesture as well._ He averted his gaze to the water again, not wanting to hold eye contact. "Uhm, Amelia?"   
"Yes, Mister Zelgadis?" she eagerly replied.   
"Could you turn around while I put on some clothes?" 

Somewhere out of earshot, Xelloss was laughing aloud. 

Stone was turning to glass, and starting to crack under stress. 

Amelia decided to keep fair distance and high optimism. 

If anything had changed, Lina did not notice upon her return. Zelgadis was still isolating himself as much as possible, Amelia was trying her best to give him space, and Daubrik was avoiding Amelia like the plague simply because she was a girl. All in all, things were looking pretty up.   
Lina met up with Zelgadis as he was watering seeds. He was going about it the hard way, with two buckets of water that constantly needed refilling. The redhead grinned and waved a finger at him. "You know, that would be a lot easier if you used Aqua Create."   
The chimera paid her no attention as he carefully spilled water across a row of small sprouts. "I haven't learned it yet," he informed her.   
"And you're our resident shamanist?" she teased.   
He looked up at her in fake disbelief. "If I need water, I'll just cast an ice spell. Besides, I like--"   
"--the work because it keeps me away from Amelia," the sorceress finished for him.   
"I wasn't going to say that," he corrected.   
Lina exclaimed knowingly, "But you thought it, and that's what really counts."   
"I suppose you're right," the chimera agreed. "After all, you never say a word to Gourry, but you two have really hit it off."   
"Zel," she threatened as she glowered at him.   
He took a step back, just in case she decided to throw a spell his way. "Hey now. You're the one who brought it up."   
Her clenched fist was shaking from the tension. "I should cream you for that," she insisted, but, in an amazing display of self control, she let her arm drop as she calmed herself. "However," she declared, "I'm not going to hit you. I'm going to wait four days."   
Zelgadis cracked a smile.   
Lina followed up with one of her own. "Because then it'll actually hurt you."   
  
  


Tsuzuku...   


http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/m/l/mlp246/onethirdtrilogy.html   
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/fanfix.html   
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/m/l/mlp246/fanart.html   
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/3542/index.html 


	12. New Chapter Eleven: well, the 2nd half i...

**One Third Human**   
**Part Eleven**   
by: Shell Presto

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, and various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honour, okay? Enjoy.   
Proofreading/editing/beta-reading for this story was done by Dreamsinger. Thanks DS! 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. I always try to write back. It helps. Also, be sure to check out my webpage Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation for the fanart that goes with this story. 

The One Third Human doujinshi is available on my website, Inspiration Stemming from Sleep Deprivation.   
I also now have a 'guest' fanart gallery for 1/3. Check it out.   
  


One Third Human   
Part Eleven   
by: Shell Presto 

Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. All chacters that I have made up, and the towns they reside in, also belong to me. Have honor, okay? Enjoy. 

Email me at mangetsu@email.com with any commentary. Even the smallest suggestion is appreciated, and the more critical comments are indispensable. Please drop me a line even to tell me if you are reading this. It helps. I'll do my best to get back to you. Well, enough of that, on with the story.   
The One Third Human doujinshi is available on my website, Inspiration Stemming From Sleep Deprivation.   
  


A white, blinding light surrounded him. Then all he felt was warmth as the whiteness gave way to colour. He was standing in the main temple, surrounded by his friends. They were all staring at him, and they were all dumbfounded.   
Lina was, as usual, the first to speak. "It actually worked! Zel, you're human!"   
Delight washed over Amelia's face, and her wide eyes glistened like saphirres. "Oh, wow! It's amazing, Mister Zelgadis! You're really human again." Her voice grew more quiet with every sentence, until it was almost silent. "You're kind of handsome, actually."   
It was a realization and a half when he noticed he had not heard Amelia's last statement, but had only read her lips. His heightened senses were indeed gone. Suddenly snapped from his funk, he looked down at his hands to confirm it himself. Sure enough, pale flesh had replaced blue stone. He felt warmer, hot actually. There was sweat forming just below his lower lip, and he fought the urge to lick it off despite wanting desperately to taste the saline. "I don't believe it..." he mumbled to himself.   
"Congratulations, Zel!" Gourry encouraged him with a good slap on the back.   
Zelgadis was forced to take two steps forward to compensate for the momentum. It felt wonderful, and he grinned.   
Then his manners caught up with him, and he coughed into his hand. "Uhm... I'd like to thank you all. I mean, I wouldn't be human right now if not for your help."   
Lina grinned. "Yeah, well, it's not like we could refuse to help a friend. It's good to see you actually smile for a change."   
He was smiling so hard it hurt; he'd never felt happier.   
Still holding a smile, Gourry added, "It is too bad, though."   
The perfection shattered, and all the glee drained from Zelgadis' pale face. "Wh.. What? What's too bad?"   
Feeling guilty, Gourry could only shrug as he replied, "I mean, about how you can't travel with us anymore."   
"Wha... What?" a near speechless Zelgadis forced out.   
Amelia sorrowfully explained, "It's not to be mean, Mister Zelgadis. We, and most especially I, would love to have you come with us, but it's just not practical. We're worried about your safety."   
"My safety?" He could barely mimick the phrase.   
Lina could not make eye contact. "C'mon, Zel! You know you can't use magic anymore, and you're not that great with a sword, either. I mean, a troll could have a field day with you. Let alone someone like Seigramm."   
"Or Phibrizzo," Gourry noted.   
"Or Darkstar," Amelia warned.   
Zelgadis could not say anything. He could not think of a word. It was like someone had shoved a rusty fan blade into his chest and turned it on.. but he was too numb to even feel it.   
More to ease his own conscience than his friend's, Gourry continued, "We're not doing it to be mean, Zelgadis. We really like having you around, but we can't afford to be looking out for you if we get into another big firefight."   
"You know how Lina attracts trouble," Amelia reminded him in her meekest voice.   
With sad eyes, the redhead gave him a final farewell. "We're really sorry, Zel. And we'll miss you."   
The only three friends that Zelgadis had walked toward the temple door. He watched, stunned, as they walked out the door. Then they moved down the main hall, and, finally, out of his sight.   
It was then that the floodgates opened, and a torrent filled the emptiness that had possessed him. He finally felt the jagged blade tearing through his insides. The storm manifested itself in his eyes, and they burned as hot tears tried to quench them. "WAIT!" he screamed, his voice cracking from sheer, desperate volume. He started to run as the blade moved into his throat, tore it apart. "I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN! I WANT TO BE A CHIMERA!!" 

Zelgadis' eyes jarred open as he hit the floor. Blue green slits darted in every direction to make sure he was still safely in his dorm. His breathing was ragged. A thin film of sweat covered his forehead, neck, chest. His throat was sore. And he was crying. But he was stone, and that allowed his ragged breath to at least level itself out to shallow. He could not even pick himself up off the floor, he only rolled onto his back. He could not think.   
Lina darted through the door in a panic. He heard the metal knob crack off the wall. "Zel!" she nearly screamed as her eyes fixated on the floored chimera. She hurriedly kneeled beside him. " What's wrong!?   
He wanted to answer, but he was too occupied with breathing. He also realized that he had been drooling at some point, although the knowledge did not affect him as much as it should have. Breathing hurt too much.   
"Zel!?" Lina questioned, more quietly this time, exasperated. Dumbfounded.   
"Miss Lina?" Amelia called sleepily as she walked in the door.   
The sorceress turned to the new visitor. "Amelia..!" was all she could say.   
Then the princess saw the cause of the commotion. "Mister Zelgadis!" she cried. She, too, dropped to her knees at his side. "What happened!?"   
It felt like someone had put a lead weight on his chest. At least, he would equate it to that if he were human.   
"I don't know," Lina replied, almost sheepishly as she bit her lip. She was too worried. " He... He doesn't look hurt, but..."   
He was in shock. And he finally realized what had happened. It was just a dream. Just a dream.   
Lina and Amelia were saying something as his breathing began to ease.   
"...just a dream," he forced out quietly.   
"Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia's voice carried a tone of instant relief as she looked at his eyes. He was now safely, and coherently, looking back at them.   
"Zel," was all the redhead could manage.   
"Amelia...?" he mouthed absentmindedly as he unconsciously tensed his fingers around hers. The last few minutes seemed like a blur. "what..?"   
"What happened?" Lina finally asked, with as much curiousity as concern. "Did you pass out?"   
Zelgadis lifted his head to start getting up, but then deployed the effort, letting his head fall sharply back to the hard wood floor. He could not compose himself. Still in a haze, he replied, "I... don't know."   
"Are you all right?" Amelia leaned over him, her fingers bunching his cape up on the floor.   
He wanted to say 'I'm fine.' It was, afterall, his natural reaction to the question. But he could not say it. The words would not form in his throat. And his throat hurt so much.   
After a long silence spent staring at the ceiling, he finally said, "Could you two leave me alone for a while?"   
A worried sorceress accompanied an equally worried princess from the room. She liked to think she was comforting her.   
Zelgadis made no effort to get up, and he decided not to make any until he could make sense of his dream. There was no comfort in the painted white ceiling. 

Lina reentered late that afternoon. Zelgadis was still lying on the floor, but this time in a more comfortable position, on his back with his arms folded behind his head. His legs were crossed as well as he stared at the ceiling, while his face showed a calm, slightly bored expression. That is, until he saw her, then he pulled himself up, leaning back with his weight on his arms. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened as if he was not sure what to say.   
The redhead invited herself in, closing the door before she sat down on the edge of the bed. He seemed to have a childlike fear to him as she looked down at him sitting on the floor. Her face reflected his distress. "Are you all right, Zel?"   
The chimera looked at the floor, scratching one of the rocks below his eye. Lina could hear the faint scraping in the silence. "I'm fine, I guess."   
"You guess?" Lina repeated slowly. She had never heard him set himself up for another personal question before in her life. At least, never in reguard to how he was feeling. It made her realize the severity of the problem, whatever the problem was. "Zel, what happened this morning? I know you talk in your sleep sometimes, but I've never heard you..."   
He cut her off more out of curiousity than anything else, "How did you know I talk in my sleep?"   
"Gourry complained about it when we first started traveling together," she told him. "But really, Zel, what happened this morning? You looked like you had a heart attack."   
"I... I really don't know what to tell you. It was only a dream."   
Lina gave him a sympathetic glance, tilting her head to the side. "The Rezo one again?"   
He shook his head. "No. A different one. Which is strange in itself. Whenever I dream, it's always about Rezo. This is the first different one that I've had since I've become a chimera... at least that I can remember."   
"So..." Lina wondered, "What was it about?"   
"It was about..." He thought for a moment, tried to put it into words. No matter how he thought about it, it seemed silly. How could he make her understand? Finally, he came up with something to relate it with. "Lina... do you ever wish that you had never learned about the Lord of Nightmares? That is, did you ever think you'd be better off not knowing the Giga Slave?"   
She was completely unprepared for the question. She looked up at the ceiling and scratched her head. "Not know the Giga Slave? Well, yeah. It's a lot of responsibility, and I was really creeped out after the whole Shabranigdo thing..." Then she grew quiet, and she stared directly at the stones beneath his eyes. "Actually, I hated myself for knowing it for a while. When Gourry was captured, and I saw you and Amelia killed, all I could think was 'Why me?' I thought, if I hadn't know the Giga Slave, then Phibrizzo wouldn't have had a reason to come after me. The world wouldn't have been in danger. My friends wouldn't have been in danger."   
An almost chilling silence fell over the room, and the darkness of memory filled both their hearts despite the sun dancing in the sheer curtains. A moment of silence for the tortured souls who dwelled in Sairaag, a moment for the once dead and the possessed.   
Finally, quietly, Zelgadis asked, "But did you ever want to unlearn it?"   
"Of course not," she affirmed with a touch of her pride. "If I didn't know it, the world would have been destroyed by Shabranigdo, and Phibrizzo would still be plotting somewhere. I mean, yeah, life would be easier, but there's no point in things being easy if you're not alive, or if the people you care about are all dead."   
"I had a dream where I was human, Lina."   
She almost smiled. Then the sorceress realized what her friend was trying to say. "Someone didn't die, did they, Zel?"   
He looked at her a little surprised, and wondered why his dream had not turned out that way. Of course, he was the only one who could have ended up dead. "No, Lina."   
"Then what?"   
Zelgadis sighed. "I won't be able to travel with you guys anymore."   
"What?" Lina exclaimed in disbelief. "Where'd you ever come up with an idea like that?"   
"I'll be powerless, Lina. I'll be completely useless in a fight."   
"Hey," the redhead protested, a slightly nervous smile complementing confident eyes. "You may not be that strong, but you still know magic."   
"No I don't," he disagreed, but then thought to correct himself. "I'm part brow demon. When I was human, I memorized every spell imaginable, but I could really only cast three. I was horrible with magic."   
"Which three?" she asked, but then cringed because it was off subject, and probably insulting.   
He humored her. "Lighting, Shadow Snap, and an impressive looking Flare Arrow that could probably only challenge Sylphiel's."   
It only made Lina cringe more. Those were three very unimpressive spells. She tried to shrug it off. "So you're a swordsman."   
"But I'm not," he corrected again. "I'm about average with a sword at best. I really wouldn't stand up to anyone good without my speed and stone skin."   
She smiled in defeat, and breathed a slight laugh. "Did you ever consider becoming a thief?"   
He returned a sardonic smile. "Yeah, but then I've got too much pride to be a petty thief, and the bigger the job, the more of a chance I'll be killed for a stupid reason."   
Lina stood up. "But really, Zel," she assured him, her smile turning genuine. "Before you're an ally, you're our friend. You're always welcome to come along with us, no matter what. You just have to realize that if we do run into trouble that's more than you can handle, you'll have to think about yourself first." He just sort of stared at her, barely taking in the words. He was not expecting them. "You're going to have to accept that you're not a chimera anymore, and that you may have to run away."   
Zelgadis did not like that sound of that, yet he realized he could not object. He just sat quietly.   
Lina kneeled down in front of him. "Even if you don't have the potential to use magic, there are lots of spells and charms to amplify magic capacity. There are also lots of magic weapons and armor out there to make you stronger, but this is the only chance for a cure that we've come upon so far. I kinda figured you never actually thought about what you'd do if you got your cure, but I think you should put that on hold until you actually are human. This may be you're only chance, Zel, and you shouldn't hold yourself back on our account."   
She wanted to let everything settle in, so she stood up and walked to the door. Before she stepped out, the sorceress passed a final look over the perplexed chimera. "Don't worry about it, Zel," she reaffirmed. "We'll stand behind you one hundred percent, and even if you decide you don't want to fight anymore... well, that just means we'll be able to crash at your house for free."   
Zelgadis found comfort in Lina's grin as she walked out of his room. Somehow she always managed to put things in perspective for him. Magic items, maybe lessons from Gourry... a house. I've never even considered that one.   


When Amelia walked into his room late the next day, she was surprised to find Zelgadis sitting on the floor amidst a veritable sea of old parchments. He was reading over a particularly worn one with an almost regretful look in his eyes.   
"May I come in?" she requested meekly.   
He looked up at her with a faint mumble of surprise. The chimera just stared at her a moment, suddenly taken with her appearance. Maybe it was because he was on the floor that his eyes followed an imaginary path up the curves of her body. Curves was the key word here; Amelia had gotten older, taller, more filled out. She was trying to grown her hair out straight, he figured, and she was probably frustrated because it would always fan out near the bottom. Her outfit looked slightly more like that of a traditional priestess' robes, and she was wearing heels. Finally, he caught her eyes, and was amazed to see that they had not changed at all over the two years. But then again, he thought, looking at his hands, neither have I.   
Wondering about the look he had given her, and his lack of a reply, she tried for his attention once again. "I'm not interrupting, am I?"   
"No," he responded quietly.   
She flashed him a knowing smile. "Can I come in?"   
He was just quiet for a moment, wanting to know what he should say or what she wanted.   
Amelia just shut the door and waltzed into his room, unceremoniously dropping to the floor beside him. "And, as usual, he doesn't know how to respond."   
True to form, he did not know what to say after that comment, either. He just watched her lean against the bed while locking her hands in front of her knees. Yet she did not call him on it. It took him a while to think of a reply. "That's very convicting of you." It would have been a quip if his concentration had be up to par.   
Her smile faded into concern. "You really are out of it," she deduced.   
"Yeah."   
"Mister Zelgadis..." She reached out to take his hand, and he pulled it away. Instead, she brought her hand up to the side of her face, leaning into it as she averted her attention to the bed itself. "Miss Lina told me you were feeling a bit self-conscious. That is, more than usual."   
"Not really... I just... I really don't know what I'm going to do. Once I'm human," he admitted.   
Nervously, she asked, "Well, what were you planning to do? I mean, you wanted to become human for a reason, right?"   
He exhaled while his lips curved into a weak smirk. "I just don't want to be a freak anymore. And I want to be myself again."   
"But what do you want to do?" She emphasized the question by sitting up straight.   
The chimera merely glanced at the paper in his hand. "Become human."   
Amelia sighed. "You have to want to do something... What are you reading?"   
Not taking his eyes off the document, he spoke softly, "I've spent all of my adult life looking for a cure."   
"Mmm... Zelgadis?" Their eyes met again, and the blue green slits seemed human somehow, almost wide, and painfully sad. "i don't understand," the young woman whispered.   
He tried hard to smile, but he only looked awkward. His eyes, however, gained a look of appreciation. "Everything I've done was to find my cure. I really have no purpose without it. I have no family, no home. There's really nothing for me to turn to."   
"You have us," Amelia suggested.   
Zelgadis just looked sad, though grateful. "But that's not permanent." Suddenly he felt a familiar charge in the air, that of an upcoming justice speech. Quickly, he added, "Really, Amelia. Even if I decide to just keep traveling, you spend most of your time at the castle, and Lina and Gourry... they're a... I'm sure they prefer to travel alone from time to time. And, even if they didn't, they're both going to settle down someday. Where would that leave me?"   
"You're always welcome in Saillune," she offered, with much less enthusiasm than she had expected. He did not seem to be in the mood to give any response that she would want to hear.   
As if on her mental cue, he said, "That isn't right, either."   
They were in their own little sound proof bubble again.   
Amelia picked up one of the papers on the floor; it was scrawled on in runes, and the handwriting was nearly illegible. Quietly, as if she had not meant to ask it aloud, she murmured, " Who wrote this?"   
Her answer came quickly from an empty voice. "Rezo."   
Slowly, she turned to look at him. Both of their expressions were blank. "I thought you hated him. Why would you keep this?"   
Zelgadis gazed over the collection of papers. "Their his notes on magic, particularly on chimeras, golems, mind control spells, anything like that." He picked up another particularly thick stack of papers. "These are from an abandoned lab in the Outter World. I don't know who wrote them. And this..." The chimera displayed what appeared to be the latter half of a book. "I ripped this off of a library in Xoana."   
The princess took the books from his hands and paged through it. The pages crumbled as she touched them, showing their age as their smell, a dusty, warm aroma, overpowered her. She coughed on the dust. "Old book section," she concluded.   
He smiled. "Ancient, actually."   
The chimera was looking away from her, but Amelia noted the warmth in his expression. He seemed to like talking about himself when they were on more neutral subjects. However, she was hoping she could draw him out into murkier waters. "You said you'd come back to Saillune..."   
"I will," he assured her, and, as he spoke, he looked straight forward. With resolve, he ammended, "For a while. Until I get things straightened out."   
Amelia could only stare at him for a moment. He looked so picturesque, so confident. Unconsciously, her lower lip tightened as she pouted; all she felt was confused.   
"What's wrong?"   
"Why couldn't you stay?"   
The words were like bullets, massacreing his confidence. "I..."   
"We could give you a job," she interjected, her voice gaining unnatural volume as she leaned towards him on her arms. "It's not like you'd be freeloading. And you'd be free to leave when you want, I mean, it would be just like renting a normal room. And you wouldn't have to worry about meals or anything."   
"But I don't belong there," he reasoned. "There's no way I'd be staying there if not for you."   
The princess' heart sunk into her stomach and just sat there like a lead weight. "I don't get you, Mister Zelgadis," she began quietly, with an almost spiteful undertone. "You complain you have no family, but we're always here for you. You never let us help. You know you're always welcome in Saillune, you always were. The reason you don't have family is because you don't want it."   
"But you're not my family," the chimera pointed out. "And nothing can change that."   
"Why not?" Amelia snapped indignantly.   
Zelgadis ran a hand through silver wire. "Because, you won't ever feel like family. I mean, that would be incest or something."   
It was an answer she had not expected. As blunt as it was, it brought a faint warmth with it, like he was admitting his feelings in an indirect, roundabout way. "But, wait, Zelgadis," she added with a faint frown. "Family doesn't just mean brothers and sisters, you know?"   
He huffed out a sharp breath. "And if nothing happens, or if we do... if we broke up, then I'd have to pick up and leave all over again."   
Amelia got quiet again. I hadn't thought of that. Indeed, it was a terribly depressing thought. She bit her thumbnail as she mumbled, "You can't be optimistic, can you?"   
"It would be dumb not to bring up the possibility just to spare your feelings. If you never thought about the downside, you'd be crushed if it ever happened."   
"Of course, we'd have to be in a relationship for that to ever happen," she highlighted.   
The chimera shook his head, then stood up. "I just can't see it working, Amelia. You're a princess. Sure, you could help me out a lot, but I'd feel like I'm taking advantage. Unless you're looking to guilt trip me into a relationship, I..."   
Amelia bolted up and locked her arms around him, burying her face in his cloak. "Why can't you ever realize that there's a lot that can be done for free," she sobbed frantically into the stone wall that was his chest.   
"I know, Amelia," assured her in a hushed tone before placing a hand on the back of her neck. His other hand wrapped around her waist as he leaned his cheek against the top of her head. The extra stones on his face got in the way, and he was careful not to lean too hard into her. She was crying hard, though, and he wanted to be reassuring. "I just don't know how we're going to get an oppurtunity to explore that."   
And he was worried about that, about living in Saillune versus travelling with Lina and Gourry. There were lots of thoughts running through his head about his future, all were jumbled and troubling, yet they all brought a newfound excitement with him. He found that enjoyed worrying about them. 

Xelloss was starving for his own excitement as he mentally crossed off the days. 

And the day finally came.   
His friends found him the next morning standing outside the temple and staring up at the clear blue sky, looking every bit as sleep deprived as he was. Although he heard them walk out into the open air behind him, he was too tired to turn around. Lina nudged him with her elbow. "Today's the big day!"   
His weary smile was the most genuine she had ever seen. "Yeah," was all he could think to say.   
"You didn't sleep at all, did you, Mister Zelgadis?" Amelia chirped, ever the early bird.   
He breathed a short laugh through his nose. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep pulling at his brain, but the world seemed surrealistically perfect at the moment. The air refreshed his lungs with every breath, the morning dew giving it a cool bite every time he inhaled. The world had painted itself in soft pastels, the dusty gold of the bricks, the soft green of the trees, even the pink in Amelia's outfit seemed more subdued. Then again, maybe his vision had simply started to blur. Either way, the air was charged, and, for once, he felt relaxed.   
"Hey," Gourry warned, placing a hand on the his friend's shoulder. "You better wake up. You look like you're gonna pass out."   
"I just might," the chimera agreed, wiping one leaden eyelid with his thumb. Stone grated on stone, and he eagerly awaited the eclipse so he would never know the deadened sensation again.   
Lina grinned. "So you've been up how many hours?"   
"Probably forty or so, but I can't fall asleep. I'm just that excited," he confessed.   
"You should be, Zel," Gourry encouraged him while steadying the chimera. "But... you are going to be okay if I let you go, right?"   
Zelgadis could only nod.   
"I would hope you can stand on your own, Zelgadis. At least long enough for me to cast the spell."   
Zelgadis turned to see the priest in an elaborate golden robe with black and turquoise trim, apparently for the ceremony. "Believe me, I'll manage," he assured him.   
Daubrik's expression softened into one of empathy as he tensed his fingers around his Holy Book. It was finally time for him to return the favor that his elders had done for him. "Well then, we had best get prepared. The eclipse will begin in a few minutes."   
Before Zelgadis could take so much as two steps, he felt a tug on his cape. Amelia stood blushing, her eyes averted, though her peripheral vision was locked onto his weary expression.   
He sighed, and rolled his eyes before giving her a quick hug. She pulled him close and rested her chin on his shoulder as his cold wire hair pressed against her face. She closed her eyes in case of scratches, and whispered, "I can't wait to see you again."   
The chimera thought the whole display a bit cheesy as he released her, but he was thankful nonetheless. He only followed Daubrik into the main hall. Once again the stained glass maiden looked down upon them from the front of the hall, the stained glass sun behind her telling a tale of banished darkness. Above them, the great transparent window let the white sunlight beam down on them as the other facets bombarded the room in a smorgasboard of colours.   
"All you have to do is stand in the center of this circle," the priest instructed as he pointed out the huge magic circle carved in the stone floor. "I'll begin chanting from the alter as soon as the eclipse begins. The eclipse will last about fifteen minutes, and, although the spell takes about half that time to cast, it's best that you remain in the circle until the eclipse ends."   
Reality snapped Zelgadis' mind back into place, and he agreed grimly. Best to take all of this seriously now, he told himself. I don't want anything to go wrong. Besides, after this, I won't have to hold back anymore. Though I wonder what I'll do...? He mentally slapped himself for letting his mind wander again, but in the back of his mind, he fancied that he'd yell his triumph loud enough for the entire world to hear.   
Soon enough, the edge of the circle began to grow dark as shadow crept over the stone floor. Daubrik began to chant in a low drone of a voice, offering ancient words to his golden deity. The floor let off a dim glow beneath Zelgadis' feet, and the symbols on the floor illuminated themselves in a pale, shimmering light. The chanting became a low buzz as Zelgadis' senses reeled. A column of light shot up from the floor, enveloping him as a the light burned his skin like a thousand needles digging into the memory of once soft flesh. He shut his eyes as the onslaught continued, the light from below blazing while the sun above had only started its transformation. The eternity of pain was merely seconds, he realized, as the burning faded to a soothing warmth that washed over his stone skin.   
So he opened his eyes. The room had vanished in a pool of white, and all he could see was himself and the runes in various shades of non-colour. Disconcerted, he scratched his head, and met with no resistance. His eyes widened as his pupils retreated into their coloured shells from the brightness of it all. The wirey resistance of metal was gone, and, although he could not feel the softness of it, he knew his stone hand had just run through smooth hair. Zelgadis was in shock as he tried to get a good look at the lockes that fell over his eyes. In the end, he only gave himself a headache. He smiled, and wanted to cry. "It's actually working," he whispered to himself in disbelief. He covered his face with his hands and inhaled a sharp breath while, for the first time in years, actually touching his forehead. His skin was still stone, but the extra rocks were no longer embedded in his skin. He held his breath in eager anticipation.   
The response was a scream. A shrill, loud, scream. From outside the temple. From Amelia.   
Zelgadis turned to the sound, trying to see through the walls of white that surrounded him. The only colour to be found was a sudden, faint burst of red, unmistakably one of Lina's spells. Then the chanting stopped, and the light of the circle began to dim to a faint, transparent column of white. Blue flashed in pillar outside as Amelia set off a Rah Tilt, and the familiar din of battle replaced the silence of the priest.   
The young man turned to Daubrik, who clenched his open book with troubled hands. Neither knew what was going on.   
Zelgadis looked down at the shadow that crept over the floor. It was barely a fourth of the way across the circle. He bit his thumbnail, only to find that it actually broke off between his teeth. It was clear, showing the blue stone beneath it. Gourry's shrill cry of pain interrupted his awe. Never taking his attention from his fingernails, Zelgadis asked in a quiet, somber voice, " It'll reset if I step out of this circle, won't it?" Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Daubrik nodding in agreement.   
Lina belted out another spell, and the ground reverberated beneath them as Zelgadis ran towards his friends. It was like being underwater, and everything moved in slow motion as he left the pool of white. When he hit air, he felt the pricks as his hair turned sharp again, and the searing burn of rocks reforming on his face. He clenched his teeth as his eyes narrowed, trying to push the urgency down as it speeded up his throat. He choked it down like the venom it was while he raced out the door.   
"Hurry back!" Daubrik called after him. "There's still time!"   
What Zelgadis saw when he reached the climax of the steps was the finale of a battle, and his friends were losing. Gourry lay sprawled and bloody on the steps with Amelia's hands hovering over him in a halo of white radiance. Lina stood before a giant fiend the colour of midnight. Its streamlined humanoid form showed a slight shade of insect, bulbous red eyes craving the victim reflected within them. The master sorceress only wielded a short sword against it.   
After intaking the situation, Zelgadis hurried down the steps to assist the underdogs.   
"Mister Zelgadis!?," the priestess gawked at the sight of the chimera rushing towards them. "Why are you down here?! You should be--"   
"What's going on?" he huffed, stopping in the middle of the scene, and, apparently, distracting the monster. It paused to look at him, and Lina took the chance to lunge at it. The creature was more than content to whack the redhead with one of its claws. It grinned maliciously as she flew towards the steps.   
Its lips curved ever further when she did not get up.   
"LINA!" Zelgadis yelled in distress as he utilized his unnatural reflexes, catching her with arms no softer than the stone she would have landed on otherwise. Gourry echoed the chimera's cry, trying to force himself up despite Amelia's arms pushing him down. Lina merely grunted a word of thanks while her shoulders reminded her of her unsoft landing.   
"I'm alright, Gourry," she called to her protector.   
Zelgadis, baffled by how a monster could stand against the combined sword and sorcery of his friends, began to ask, "Why haven't you already..."   
"Magic doesn't hurt this guy," Lina bitterly informed him.   
"And a Ragna Blade?" Zel mumbled, not moving his mouth while he eyed the creature.   
"He doesn't teleport, but he's too fast," Lina replied. "I can't keep up with him."   
Zelgadis placed Lina on her feet. Instantly she balanced herself, favouring her right leg, while her comrade drew his sword.   
"Astral Vine hurts it!" Gourry frantically advised as the chimera rushed the monster.   
It did not even take a second for Zelgadis to process his friend's advice. Instantly his eyes locked on to a gash on the fiend's abdomen, curteousy one Gourry Gabriev.   
"ASTRAL VINE!" he summoned the astral energy to his sword, and the firey blade cut into the monster like an axe through a sheet of paper. It happened in a blur of inhuman speed, and the monster was sliced in half even as it tried to get away. The slain creature vanished into a whirlpool of black. Zelgadis allowed himself one calming breath before heading back towards the temple.   
And just as he turned a blur of yellow passed the bottom corner of his right eye. An arm hooked around his throat, strangling him with a savage strength. He could not see it, but he knew it was an arm as he placed his hands on either side of the elbow and tried to wrench it off as it dragged him off his feet. Zelgadis felt it tighten around his throat with a childlike ease as he tried to adjust, contract, conscrict, anything to get air. His stone fingers clawed at cloth and flesh and more stone alike, to tear the arm apart or get underneath it to pull it off. His vision blurred, and the blue sky started to melt into an all encompassing black. Suddenly, the pressure released. His eyes rolled forward again as air rushed to his lungs. A fist rushed with it, directly into Zelgadis' face. Shards of rock flew as the blood that had been waiting in his throat gushed into the free air. Something hard contacted his stomach in a mess of burgundy, and he felt his skin crunch into his ribs as they snapped. More blood escaped his mouth as the phantom arm gave the back of his neck a sharp elbow, ramming Zelgadis face first into the ground. Then the wisp of an onslaught vanished without a trace, and the three worried onlookers scrambled to the side of the fallen.   
"MISTER ZELGADIS!" Amelia creeched as she watched his blood run down the cracks between the irregular bricks.   
The dazed chimera gritted his teeth, trying to push himself up with his arms while the air he breathed turned to nails inside his chest. The stabbing pain made him want to collapse in on himself as the world around him turned dark.   
Zelgadis was not unconscious, but the shadow of a completely covered sun fell over them. As his shadow disappated into all the others, he screamed while trying to struggle to his knees.   
"Don't move, Zel!" Lina freaked. The weight of the darkness fell hard onto her shoulders.   
Amelia fell to her knees, placing her arms over the chimera as she chanted in a possessed, almost disbodied manner, "Resurrection."   
"We don't have time for that!" Lina frantically cried as she wapped Amelia on the shoulder. "Gourry! Get him up those steps!" she barked while her throat tensed.   
It was a struggle in and of itself for the already wounded swordsman to heft the chimera up onto his shoulder. Zelgadis could not repress himself from screaming bloody murder as the blonde's shoulder rythmically dug into his ribs with each step they climbed. The going was slow enough that he eventually managed to clamp his teeth together, hissing stifled screams and sharp breaths through them as his blood poured out to leave a trail behind in the darkness for the girls to follow. It was probably for the best, it kept the teeth on the side of his mouth from falling out.   
When they arrived in the temple, and almost hysteric Daubrik fumbled to assist Gourry in getting the chimera off his shoulder. "We have to get him into the circle!" Daubrik and Gourry both looped one of Zelgadis' arms around their necks, the weight of which forced the priest to his knees. Although conscious of his weight, Zelgadis failed to hold his concentration through the pain any more than to try to move his legs in the direction he was being pulled. They managed to drag the chimera to the center of the partially lit circle. The shadows had already initiated their recession. Daubrik took his place at the altar, spewing words as fast as his tongue would form them. His eyes could not hold pace with his mouth, and in his frantic attempt to help the chimera, his mind relayed the words from memory, from the fateful day that he had been healed. 

His friends watched helpless at the edge of the brilliant stage, able to do nothing but hold their breath. And pray.   
Gourry merely stood witness with wide blue eyes, hoping that his friend could be happy.   
Lina cursed herself for not trying to figure out the time reversal spell that Rezo so easily had used. It had been such a fascination before... but then again, she would not be able to use it on the sun for crying out loud. That would just be playing god. Her thoughts turned to the Lord of Nightmares as she tried to focus on the form of her friend laying in that blaze of white.   
Amelia prayed. She prayed to her mother and her sister, to her ancestors, to Zoalmagustar and the Lord of Nightmares. I just want him to be human. Please.   
Feeling half dead in the warm glow, the chimera did not attempt to move. I just want to be human, his mind echoed the request, though he did not know who it was for. The thought crossed his mind that he did not know what his mother looked like, but, as the warmth grew and he felt his wounds knit themselves back together, he thought the feeling must have been the same as when she held him. His mind balanced on the verge of a dark abyss until he took in a long, deep breath. So deep that his back cracked a bit, in a relaxing sort of way. In a way that had long been impossible due to his golem construction. That was when he realized that he was drooling on the floor; his saliva crept under his cheek, which was pressed against the floor. Lying on the floor had, in fact, become very uncomfortable. It was very, very hard, and he felt its hardness. Finally, it dawned on the young man that he felt the texture and coolness of the stone floor. His vision cleared itself as he sat up in the sea of light, disoriented by the sensation of weight and his skin shifting to mold to his clothing, the floor, his surroundings. He watched the light overpower the darkness as the last remnant of shadow gave way to the sunlight on the floor. Shortly thereafter, the supernatural coccoon of light around Zelgadis faded.   
Yet Daubrik still stood at the alter, chanting the spell, never stopping. And when Zelgadis looked into his eyes, he saw nothing but distress. No relief. No happiness. No hope.   
Zelgadis brushed the tawny hair out of his eye. Then he held it in place, amazed at the softness of it. He had never really noticed it before. He wanted to cry. It barely took more than a minute for Daubrik to finish the rest of the spell.   
"Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia cried, yet nearly laughed. It was all she could do to stand still. She was in utter disbelief. The creamy tan outfit was now filled by a pale, very young looking man with ochre hair. He looks my age, she noted gleefully. His chiseled features were smoothed now. And his eyes... His brilliant blue eyes, eyes with only a hint of green at their edge, eyes that were wide enough to even have a distinct edge... His eyes looked like they wanted to cry, because he understood.   
Daubrik faltered at even clearing his throat, but the site of fate's victim trapped in her web strengthed his voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't have enough time to finish the spell." 

Zelgadis could only stare at his hands, at the pale fingers that emerged from tan gloves. Only now did he realize how thick his outfit was, and how rough the material was to the touch. Any rougher and it might have been itchy. His palms were sweating; it was an amazing sensation.   
Lina clenched her teeth, afraid to open her mouth. She wanted to ask why Zel was still human if the spell was not completed. The bruises from the sudden attack had started to throb, and her head was still spinning, but she could never fight the urge to be the leader. It made her feel powerful to be in charge, even though her chest ached with helplessness as she watched her distraught friend on the floor. No questions seemed appropriate, especially when she felt the hand of a princess quiver when it grasped her arm.   
Even though the redhead turned to look at her, Amelia could not pry her eyes off of Zelgadis. All Amelia wanted to do was cry. It was all she could think to do, besides holding the man she loved, but the thought of accidently shattering the magical field around him kept her at bay. Yet crying was inappropriate. Zelgadis was in a thousand times more pain than she was; the least she could do was let him cry first.   
The tall swordsman placed an arm on the young girl's shoulder, supporting her because he could not support the friend that needed it. Questions, alarmingly coherent questions, swirled in brain. And, for once, they were ones that needed to be answered. He felt unconfortable not knowing what was happening, yet the situation seemed to dire to ask. Everyone else has to know what's going on, he reasoned based on the feeling in the air, a cold feeling that made him want to hold something. His free hand found Lina's, and her tiny hand squeezed his in response to their mutual fear.   
He could not get over how good the cool air felt on his skin. Inside the temple was dark and almost lifeless besides the bright window he sat beneath. His senses screamed that they did not want to give the feeling up. Years of emotional control and rationalization beat their cries down with a cold stone fist. "How long will this last?" he murmured for all to hear, thanks to the echoes of the inner sanctum.   
"I don't know," Daubrik replied honestly, regretfully. "This has never happened before. It could be when you leave the circle, it could be in another minute." He wanted to say 'it may just stay like this,' but that seemed cruel. Better he be surprised about a good turn of events than broken at their demise. "I'd probably say no longer than a day, just because most of our spells are based on the position of the sun."   
Zelgadis buried his face in his hands, pressed his palms against wet eyes as his face and chest became unbearably hot. He knew his face would be red, that his eyes would water and his heavy breathing would show. Being human meant that his friends would clearly see his vulnerability, and he imagined how good it would feel if they could comfort him. He felt his own face and hair and the roughness of his gloves as they sopped up the moisture that threatened to pour from his eyes. Every sensation was heaven and torture ensnared in a sick tango. The only way he managed to stand was by reassuring himself that it was a joke, and that they would all go away soon enough. Avoiding eye contact with everyone, he walked to the edge of the circle, stopping with it an arm's length away. With trembling, unsteady fingers he reached for the barrier wall, hesitating at where he felt the field's energy concentrate into an almost tangible form. "How long until the next eclipse," he choked, wanting to sound hopeful, wishing he felt that way.   
The four travelers grew quiet and attentive to the point where the leaves could be heard rustling on the trees outside. Amelia hiccuped a tiny sob in her throat that wanted to be freed.   
He hated to disappoint them all. "The next total eclipse... will not occur for another forty years."   
"No!" Amelia cried aloud, tears gushing from her her burning eyes.   
Her reaction was right in tune with the young man who cursed a bitter 'no' beneath his breath. The word triggered the tears, allowing them to softly run down his face and neck, where they soaked into his collar.   
Lina and Gourry tightened the grips they had on each other's hand. Neither held back much, and the discomfort, the anger and sorrow expressed in force, was more comforting than it could ever hurt.   
Zelgadis turned his head to look at Amelia. Their eyes met, soft navy and soft teal. She was surprised to see that he was not holding back, and the tears ran down his face while hers trickled in sync with his. He was smiling. It was a weak smile, sad, but gentle. It made her feel warm inside, close to him. Zelgadis only felt hot, a combination of comforting warmth and burning horror. Still, when she sniffled, and dried her eyes, then smiled back, it was okay.   
So he touched the barrier. A wave of energy crackled and shockwaved through the room. Then there was no barrier, only five people, five humans, standing in a temple. Amelia ran to Zelgadis, wrapping her arms around his waist as she nearly slammed into him. Inadvertently, she knocked him backwards, but she managed to hold him up as he took a step back to regain his balance. Her grip was that strong, and he returned it, burying his face in her thick, smooth hair while pulling her as close to him as possible. It felt good to not have to hold back. He felt the tug of the material at the back of his neck when she pulled his cloak forward to dry her tears, and he felt bad about soaking her hair with his own. He wanted to cheer her up. No matter how bad he felt, it hurt a little more when she was sad. He relaxed his desperate hold on her to step back, wiping warm, wet tears off her hot cheeks with his thumb. His fingertips were burning with sensation when he laid his hand over the side of her face, lightly tracing her jawbone, his index finger resting below the back of her ear. Amelia pulled his hand away, only to return it after removing his glove. Then she pulled his other off, and removed her own. The pieces of cloth fell around their feet as Amelia held his hand to her face. It was amazing how warm his hands were when they were so clammy, so heartfelt and nervous.   
He pulled his cape around her, lowering his head so her hair brushed against his cheek. Then he pressed his lips against the side of her neck, right below her jaw, and their embrace became tight again. He realized how protective he felt towards her, and how good her touch felt. It made him realize he was human. So he held her. And they cried. And he waited with closed eyes. He waited so long his legs grew tired, and then they sat on the floor together. The soft lavender smell of her reminded him of being a chimera, of relying on anything but touch to be with her.   
In his mind he wondered when he would change back. He remembered the burning pain that accompanied his first transformation into a chimera, and Zelgadis certainly did not want Amelia around then. Heaven forbid he had his arms around her at the time. _I'd probably crush her_. As he thought this and held her soft, warm body against his, a flood of weariness began to drown him. He felt weightless, like his legs couldn't touch the floor, and he fell forward onto Amelia.   
"Mister Zelgadis!" she gasped as all of Zelgadis' (now thankfully human) weight shifted onto her. She tightened her grip around his chest as Gourry stepped forward to lay Zelgadis onto the ground.   
"Huh?" Zelgadis mumbled groggily as Amelia laid his head in her lap.   
"Are you alright?" She asked, her heart began to skip beats.   
He smiled, too exhausted to worry anymore. "Mm hm," he assured her. "I'm just so tired." As he adjusted his hear, it felt strange to have his hair brushing up against the material of her pants. Any little motion was like a thousand tiny sensations. That, too, was relaxing. As his vision blurred, he saw that the others had left, and the pull at the back of his brain told him it was time for Amelia to leave, too. But she was so warm. He crawled up into a sitting position. She had to hold him there, his arms began shaking so badly.   
"What is it?"   
"i… i'm going to change back into a chimera…" He put his hand on her arm, in part to feel her, in part to try to hold himself up.   
She couldn't hold back a soft smile. He was so much lighter, so vulnerable without the stone exterior. "I know."   
"i c..could hurt you. i don't want to do that." Amelia let go of his shoulders, and the young man fell into her arms. He locked his grip around his waist as he rested his chin on her shoulder.   
"It'll be okay."   
"No," he breathed the word into her hair. "i really… want you to go." He was losing conciousness.   
She ran her fingers through his long hair, which was not standing up quite as much as it used to. "But you might not be human very long. Can't we just hold each other like this for a while?"   
Every motion of her hand, every time her shoulders moved with her breathing, it was another reason to give in. He could not resist. "promise me… promise me you… won't stay if i start to change back."   
With no intention of listening to him, Amelia whispered, "I promise." She felt happy holding him so intimately for the first time. There was no way she would interrupt the feeling.   
He was beyond caring as he buried his face in the nape of her neck, pressing his lips against her tan skin. He was not sure if it was because he was tired, but for the first time he felt the security of that strange concept that had for so long eluded him. _Amelia feels like home_.   
  


To be continued....   
  


Word to all: The dream sequence in the very beginning is based on a very similar dream sequence from Slayers N-EX volume 3 (the official CD). Of course, the cd takes the situation to more outrageous heights in the traditional Slayers style, but I can't take credit for the idea. As a matter of fact, I probably lifted three or four lines verbatim, except I had to translate them to English in my head. (If I get enough emails, I might just post a translation of the scene from the cd.) ^_^   
  


  
  
  



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